Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Fisheries
Issue 14 - Evidence, November 5, 1998
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 5, 1998
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries met this day at 8:35 a.m. to consider the questions of privatization and quota licensing in Canada's fisheries.
Senator Gerald J. Comeau (Chairman) in the Chair.
[English]
The Chairman: I call the meeting to order. Welcome, and please proceed.
Ms Christine Hunt, First Vice-President, Native Brotherhood of B.C.: We are not here to talk about the fleet rationalization or licensing.
The Chairman: That is the mandate of the committee, but we will not hold you to that.
Ms Hunt: I was a little worried. We are here to speak about the effects on our communities of what we believe to be the mismanagement of the 1998 fishing season on the West Coast. With me today are: Mr. Victor Kelly, who represents nine chiefs, is also a councillor, and sits on the Fishing Committee, Mr. Wadhams, Hubert Haldane, and Alfred Hunt.
I am a board member of the Canadian Council of Professional Fish Harvesters, and I sit on the board of governors for Canadian Conduct for Responsible Fisheries. I also am a member of the Fraser Panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission. Mr. Haldane is a commissioner with the Pacific Salmon Commission. Mr. Radosevic is here, as is Mr. Henderson, who represents 11 tribes.
Chief John Henderson will start our presentation this morning.
Mr. John Henderson, Campbell River First Nations: We are here today on behalf of the concerned fishermen of the British Columbia coast. You may not be aware of the effects of the dilemma that occurred this summer and in other years, nor may you realize that it also affects the children in our communities. There is a lot of hardship, there are a lot of family break-ups, and there are a lot of suicide attempts because of the situation.
The hardship that I am talking about is the fact that the livelihoods of those people were basically taken away. A resource that they survived on for hundreds of years and generations is no longer available to these people. Whether they are First Nations people or not, the opportunity has been taken away from them.
I am a First Nations person, but we cannot leave the non-native sector out. We live in an urban society today, and there is a lot of intermarriage. It is important that you understand that. We are leaders of our communities, but we cannot prejudice one against the other.
By coming here to Ottawa, it is hoped that we will leave with some idea of the direction in which we want to move. We would like to bring something back with us. What, we do not know. What are our goals and objectives in coming to Ottawa? We do not want a handout. We want some recognition that there is a problem -- a crisis. What is available for a crisis situation? Is it money, or is it false promises?
I have seen the fish come and go over the years. The fish were there. The opportunity was basically taken away from them. I have thought about it. Some nights I cannot sleep, thinking about what the possibilities are three months from now, if there is no emergency assistance for these people. Some of the people at the table here have experienced 30 suicide attempts because of what is happening. They feel they have disgraced their families because they cannot provide for them anymore. That is a reality.
The marriage breakups are a definite result of a lack of income. If you felt hardship like the First Nations are feeling at this point, you would not know what to do with it either. That is why we are here. As leaders and chiefs of our communities, our jobs are becoming tougher every day. The social assistance programs can only last so long.
Our band is on the hook for mortgages in excess of $2.7 million, and that is just our band. Every band up and down the coast is probably in the same situation, because we signed on the dotted line as the co-owners of those homes until such time as those mortgages were paid off.
In Campbell River, we were a little more advanced than some of the nations sitting at the table, but aside from that, we are the same. I speak on behalf of our fishermen, but also on behalf of all the concerned citizens of Campbell River. Many of our people are in mixed marriages.
I would like to ask that you look at some form of compensation. What it is, I do not know. We have beat around the bush and talked about it all day yesterday. I am basically all talked out. I do not know if I am wasting my time or not. I do not want to leave this room or any other room with that feeling. I would like to walk away with the feeling that something is being done about it.
I have some numbers from our village that indicate what the expectations of these fishers would have been. Some fishers are much better than others, but, on average, they expected to make $10,000 during the salmon season. That is, each member of a six-person crew would make $10,000. The net owners would make roughly $15,000, and the boat owners would make roughly $50,000. Just from our village alone, the estimated assistance that our membership would need to make them stand on their feet and be proud of themselves again would be $1.4 million. That is just our village, and we are one of the smaller villages.
People's boats are chained to the wharf because of moorage rates and also net storage. It has been building. People are going deeper and deeper in debt as we speak, because they must pay for these situations. Insurance on boats is anywhere from $15,000 to $18,000 for a year. Those insurance policies must be carried because of the fact that the boats could burn up or sink while tied to the wharf.
I could sit here and tell stories all day long, but I do not think I am here to take somebody else's time. We all want the opportunity to speak. I am available at the end of the meeting if any of you want to bring up some of these issues, because this is important.
Mr. Richard Morgan, Gitxsan Wet'suwet'en: In our area -- the Skeena River -- I represent about 70 gillnetters. Last summer our commercial fishermen were given a choice as to whether or not to fish that summer. They already had the fishing plan, which looked pretty bad. There was not much fishing time. The offer was a $6,500 grant to each of us who would stay home and not fish for the 1998 season.
In 1997, you all heard of the Alaskans who intercepted our salmon, mainly the salmon heading through our Skeena River and the Nass River. In 1997, our average gross was between $8,000 and $10,000. Our regular average catch is about $40,000 to $50,000 for the same period, and for the same area. You can see, then, the effect that the 1997 season had on us.
In 1998, DFO said they had a crisis, so they offered our fishermen $6,500. Almost all of our fishermen in the Skeena River -- about 70 boats in our own area -- accepted. They went for the $6,500 simply because they knew that they would not make it with the amount of fishing time they would receive.
That $6,500 barely paid for the insurance on their boats. Some of them were lucky to pay off their moorage and the locker rentals for their nets. The $6,500 just barely made it. As a result, DFO controls the moorage at Port Edward. As a result of two bad years, a lot of our fishermen were unable to pay their moorage.
Last spring, before the season started, a dozen or so of our boats were chained to the docks by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. They were not able to move their boats, and therefore they were forced to accept the $6,500. A lot of them had their nets auctioned off because they could not pay for the rental of storage.
Some of those fishers had five or six nets worth $2,000 or $3,000 a piece. They were auctioned off for $200 or $300, and the fishermen never received the money. What little money was raised from the sale of the nets went to pay for their storage rental. You can see the shape our fishers are in. I am talking about the Skeena River, but the people with me today have the same stories.
On top of that, none of us will qualify for EI. We cannot use that $6,500 to try to qualify for EI. Almost all of us now must apply for welfare. We have no other income. I do not know if you know it, but on our reserve a single person receives $175 a month to live on. I have two boys that must rely on welfare already. I saw their cheques. It is pretty pitiful. I really pity those kids.
What we are trying to drive home here is that our people are desperate. We are really desperate. I have heard it on the news too. In one month there were 15 suicide attempts at Alert Bay, and some of the people here today are from there.
In Port Hardy last year there were two successful suicides. This is just in a couple of villages. We are in a crisis, and our people have sent us here to find help. We would like to go home with some kind of good news, some hope for our people. I really forced the issue, because I wanted to be picked to come here and try to do something for our people.
I would like to thank Mr. Radosevic for organizing this trip for us, especially for the native people, because I think he knows he has some of our native people in the union. They know what we are dealing with, and they organized this trip for us, otherwise our own bands could not afford to pay our way here. They were supposed to pitch in and pay part of it, but they could not. That is how bad things are.
I want to leave that with you. We are hoping and praying that we will return home with some good news for our people.
Mr. Alfred Hunt, Chief, Kwaitul First Nation: Each of our communities has the same story, and you will hear it from all of us who are here this morning. We agreed to come to Ottawa to try to help our people. I am with the Aboriginal Vessel Owners of British Columbia. A few years ago we had about 70 boats. After the Mifflin plan, we might have lost about 40 per cent of that fleet.
Now we have another voluntary buy-back, but we are forced to sell into the buy-back. We have worked and invested in the industry for many years -- big investments for a lot of our people -- and now we are coming down to the last of fishing.I have been a boat owner since 1969. What is happening to our fishery is difficult to watch. This is especially true in a year like 1998, when a lot of fish were swimming by, and we only had a 15-hour opening. If we had had two short openings, it would have made a big difference to our people. The price of sockeye was up, and we sat there and watched all the fish swim by.
I do not know what the DFO plans are, but at this time this is not really working for the fishermen. I do not know if they even have a future plan for us. I do not want to leave the industry, but it is not voluntary; we are forced into selling to the buy-back.
Chief John Henderson spoke about the 1999 and 2000 seasons. They will not be there; we will not have a fishing time. He also talked about the insurance on these boats, and about expenses. The insurance alone for my boat is $8,000. The upkeep for the year is $20,000, all of which is expenses on the boat. I have six people working on my boat every year. Up till now we have had a pretty good life in the fishing industry, but all of a sudden, since the Mifflin plan, everything is going downhill.
In our village alone, we have about 12 people. Most of them are fishermen on the eviction list because they cannot make their payments on their houses. John Henderson spoke about that too. Our band guarantees a loan to CMHC. We do not have the money to make those payments to CMHC, so we are just about ready to close down our band office.
We met with DIAND. One of the people from Vancouver went up to our village, and I asked him if there was any way that they could help us out a bit. They said no, that there has been a cutback. I asked him if we could have a loan from the department, and he said that there is no money. So we are in a very bad way.
You will hear the same story from all of us. Marriages are breaking up because of money. How can you support your family on 15 hours of fishing time in a summer? Now we have a big run of chum salmon, and we do not have very many buyers. We are down to 15 cents a pound on that. Something is really wrong with this fishing industry.
All through the years we have tried to work with the DFO. As fishermen we know -- and our elders on the coast know -- how the sockeye run, how they come in every year, and how the cycle runs. This was a good run in 1998. I said that yesterday. The fish will probably be electrocuted at the fence of the Fraser. We have lost all that. Most of us live on the beach in our villages. We have sat in our houses and seen all that fish swim by. It is like dollar signs floating through our area, and we were tied up.
There are lots of questions in the Port Hardy area -- questions for the minister about this buy-back, and about the allocation to the commercial fishermen. There was a thing in the newspaper awhile back, and it said that there would be more fish for the First Nations people, and more fish for the sports fishing. We do not know which First Nations people he is talking about. We are all the same up and down the coast.
There are a lot of questions for the minister. How can we plan our future after the buy-back if he does not even have a plan himself?
Mr. Victor Kelly, Councillor, Spokesperson Allied Tribes Tsimshian Nation: I represent nine chiefs within my nation. The community I come from has a population of 2,500. The population of the whole nation is 10,000. I want to speak here about the crisis that we are having within our nation.
The community that I come from has a fish cannery, and because of that we have not received any financial support from the federal government. We never received support for our fish plant from any government, because we tried to do it ourselves.
The impact that has hit each of our northern communities has resulted in the closure of our fish plant. There is nothing for the shore workers. There is nothing for the deckhands, and there is not very much of anything for the fishers.
As a fisherman, I myself have seen the drastic decline in the fishing industry for a number of years, and it is because of the policies that have been made by the DFO. It does not suit the needs of the people on the West Coast.
You have heard what has been said here. There is 95 per cent unemployment in my community, and because of that there are suicides, breakups, and drug and alcohol abuse. It is very difficult for us to sit here and repeat ourselves. This has been occurring in British Columbia since 1997, but we are still talking today. It is the same issues. We are hoping to have answers before we leave here.
This is the last stop to receive some answers. After all, the federal government has fiduciary responsibility not only the First Nations people, but also for the commercial fishers on the West Coast. We must abide by the policies that they put in place, and they bankrupt us. They put us in dire straits.
There is a $20-billion surplus in EI. Where will it go? We have been asking for financial aid in my community. A number of letters have been sent to David Anderson. There also was a meeting in Prince Rupert with David Anderson, and we invited him to our community. He said that he would sit with us, but the problem is that he did not say what year he is coming. Having a minister tell you that he will be there in July, but not specifying the year, is very frustrating.
Letters were also sent to Jane Stewart, the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development, but we received no reply.
These leaders are the people that we should be dealing with, not second place people. After all, they take us down the bottom of the ladder. It is time for the bottom of the ladder to meet the top, and for us to have some kind of answers.
My colleagues and I have been fishing for a number of years. I have been telling DFO that they are heading the wrong way, but they will not listen. They are putting out too many commercial licenses -- not only in salmon, but also in herring and almost every fishery. In the 1960s we told them that they were heading the wrong way.
They went the wrong way. They never listened. What does it take for the DFO to understand that the First Nations people were the first ones there, and we are not going anywhere? We understand the cycle of salmon and all the sea resources. Take abalone for example, the minute they commercialized that, it was wiped out, and still we tell them to be careful.
A gentleman was speaking of bycatch here yesterday. We have done it in our fish plant with the help of the provincial government, and we have attempted to move into species other than salmon. When there are limited resources at your disposal to try to start a new fishery, how can you complete it? It is easier said than done.
I would like to leave here with some kind of message for my people. I want to say, "Yes, they have listened, and there will be some results in the end."
There are a number of issues that need to be dealt with in my community, if we are to make it self-sustainable. The first one is an old issue -- the road from Port Simpson to Prince Rupert. It was built with money from our own logging operation. The only amount from any government was $600,000. Our community invested $10 million from our logging into that road, and today we are still asking to have it upgraded before there is a major accident. We have never received any direct answers from anyone, apart from being told that the provincial government would make an announcement "soon." We want to hear something positive from the federal side. We do not want any more promises. We want direct action.
Our request comes from the grassroots, and it should happen that way, instead of our being pushed aside all of the time. We listen to the news. We see what is happening. Foreigners and immigrants are coming into this country, and they are the first people to receive handouts. The First Nations people are the last. We must come here to Ottawa to express our concerns, because our people are in crisis.
We do not know what will happen in the next two or three months, because it is so bad. It is time for the people that have hefty paycheques -- where we have nothing -- to start listening and doing something. All of you sitting here are receiving a good paycheque. We are not, and we must be funded. I thank Mr. Radosevic here for making it possible for us to come here. Our bands could not do it. That is how bad it is.
They issues that you hear from each of us are the same. There is no difference.
Mr. Greg Wadhams, Councillor, Namgis First Nations: I am from right in the middle of Johnson Straits in B.C., and the main flows of salmon move through there.
I want to talk about the frustration, the crisis situation, and the process of what is happening regarding policy. A lot of these things were brought up and talked about on the round table when Tobin and Mifflin were doing this thing, and we spoke about the crisis and the effects it would have on our communities.
As with all the other tables established by the government, however, on that board aboriginal people were there just as a rubber stamp for the decisions made by the big corporations, DFO, and other people.
We pleaded with them. What would happen to our aboriginal communities in terms of manufacturing the resource for the future? Our communities bought boats from the fisheries council, and those boats were hand-me-down vessels funded by government and the corporations in British Columbia. They gave us a few million dollars to buy these vessels. Those are the same vessels that they are now taking away because they cannot compete in the industry.
The aboriginal people in the industry are the hardest hit in the fishing industry. This new buy-back will just eliminate aboriginals from the fishing industry in pretty well all of the coastal communities.
Aboriginal people are very proud when it comes to working together and trying to be equal with other people. They like to work. They are proud, and you can see it in them when they are working in the fishing industry, which we had the privilege of doing for a few decades. We proved ourselves to be very capable and knowledgeable of the resource in our territory.
According to Delgamuukw, title and jurisdiction over the resource in our area still belong to us until proven otherwise. That refers to all Aboriginals in B.C., not just to the few that DFO is looking at right now. What is the obligation to consult with aboriginals according to Delgamuukw? What is happening with aboriginal people in fishing? What will the future of the aboriginal people in the fishing industry be with all these new policies coming out?
The same thing has happened before with past policy. Every policy that is made has directly affected First Nations people, and benefited big operations. I do not know how we will stop corporations and DFO from manipulating our lives. We were the first people they came to, and the first people to help these fisheries corporations become real. Now they are manipulating us to the point where we are nothing. Yet we still live in coastal communities, and fish still swim by our doors. We need opportunities.
At the round table, we were promised that the commercial sector allocation would not be taken away. Mr. Tobin promised us that, as did Mr. Mifflin. They also said coastal communities would not be affected too much by this change of policy. The new minister in the fishing industry has changed the policy around, and is now saying different things about allocation.
We do not know which aboriginal people he is talking about, because he will not come and consult with the First Nations along the coast. Before taking any resource away from any Aboriginal, his fiduciary responsibility is to have a process of consultation, but that is not happening.
The figure of $400 million was mentioned on June 19, and that money has apparently been designated for the West Coast. The people affected by this have not seen a penny of it, however. I do know where the money is headed, if it is headed anywhere, but it is not reaching the people who have been directly affected. Some of the stuff that DFO and other people are saying in Ottawa is a bunch of lies.
We Aboriginals on the coast are really disappointed by the way we are being treated with regards to new policies, the consultation process, and aid to our communities, which is in a bigger crisis right now than any fish stock. We would like to see some commitment to local communities for rebuilding the salmon resource. Wherever we have gone, we have said, "provide us with the funds, because we still have the opportunity."
We ask that you do it before DFO blows management and destroys all the resources we have. We still have the opportunity today to rebuild. The salmon will come back if we are given the opportunity to bring it back. It is very crucial that people listen and try to spread the message for us. That is why we are here in Ottawa.
Aboriginal participation in the future must be sustained. Maximizing the use of available natural resources to ensure sustainable business and jobs for aboriginal and coastal communities must be accomplished, and increased full-time supplementary employment must also occur in the coastal communities. It must be where people live, not in the big corporations. I somehow feel that the big corporations are in cahoots with DFO on this, and it is destroying a way of life for the people in the coastal communities.
Opportunities for the individuals who are committed to fishing and to living on the coast must be developed that respect both past tradition and the future. A commitment must be made to long-term results that can be measured, and to the cooperation and involvement of all sectors and individuals that have a stake in the future of the communities, especially the aboriginal sectors.
As a percentage, we were low in the fishing industry before. With things like the new policies, we are really low now. With the new buybacks and policies, we will be eliminated. I do not think that it is the fiduciary responsibility of the fisheries to do that.
We must have some kind of sustainability and some kind of future, especially when government likes to talk about partnerships regarding treaties, and moving into the future. We need to be there, and we need to be consulted in a meaningful way. We need to work together as partners, and not have a one-sided show where we are just rubber stamps for everything that occurs within Canada. We want to be a part of this.
Mr. Hubert Haldane, Chief, Laxgal'Sap Nisga'a Fishermen's Commission: I am a commissioner for the Pacific Salmon Treaty. I also am Chairman of the Northern Native Fishing Corporation, and I am a councillor for the village government of Greenville.
One of the many reasons we are in these problems right now is because of the plans and policies brought in by our the minister. These plans and policies go back to the Davis plan and the preceding ministers. They have put programs in place that seem to have had the ability to make things better, but from our standpoint things have gone downhill since the Davis plan.
The Davis plan and all these other minister's plans have cost our people a lot of money. It cost money to change gear, and it was very expensive. One of the things that the Davis plan brought on was to strip our "A" licenses. Before the Davis plan, we were allowed to use these licenses to fish halibut, cod and other species. When the Davis plan came about, that was stripped. We were only allowed to use that for salmon.
The Mifflin plan did the same thing. It has stripped our people of the right to fish -- for example, the people who have trolling gear combination boats. This equipment allowed our northern fishermen to supplement their gill net catches with troll catches, and that is not possible now.
Now the Anderson plan is coming in to finish us off. It will turn the fish that we have historically been allocated over to the commercial sector or to the recreational sector, with no compensation for us.
I also represent approximately 284 licenses through the Northern Native Fishing Corporation. We are financially embarrassed because of the plans over the past few years. The Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development gave us a few million dollars to start this corporation, and to purchase some boats to assist our fishermen and our people. There has been no assistance from anyone to allow this corporation to continue, however.
Many of our fishermen were given the opportunity to stay home. They took that opportunity, because they realized they were unable to make any money this year. As you know by now, fishing is a very expensive business. Just to start off will cost a gillnetter $10,000 to $30,000 a season. For many people it is hard to imagine why these things are so expensive, but they are.
I would dearly love to have you represent my Northern Native Fishing Corporation to DIAND, and to help remove us from this black list, so that we can continue to move as a corporation. We cannot move. Nobody will assist us. I am respectfully asking that someone talk to Jane Stewart and her people, so that we can get this corporation moving again, and assist our fishers.
Mr. John Radosevic, President, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union: You have heard a tragic story, and it is arguably worse in the aboriginal communities than it is in the non-aboriginal communities. There are many things that are similar as well. It is a serious situation in the non-aboriginal communities. These people must travel great distances when they come to Ottawa to see the people who have control over their lives, as DFO does. When you come here and try to set up meetings with the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries, and with Jane Stewart and David Anderson, and they refuse to even meet them to hear the tale, it is pretty shameful in my estimation. I want to thank the Senate committees for giving us the opportunity to speak to both the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples and the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries.
I find it totally unacceptable that there is this unwillingness to even hear the problem, let alone do anything to solve it. Perhaps you, as the Senate committee, might be able to use your influence to change that. We do not expect that the Senate will be able to make a law -- that power belongs somewhere else. However, if any of you have any influence on your respective caucuses in Parliament, then perhaps that is one thing that you can change.
Even if you do not agree with everything that we have said, and you still have questions and want to know more details, nobody can deny that, at the very least, those responsible for the law must listen to the people that their laws affect. That is not happening.
Letters are being sent, and copies of some of them are included in our booklet. We will be passing out some background material. There is a letter from every single major organization in the British Columbia fishery -- without exception, every single major employer has signed that letter. It was signed back on September 11, and we have yet to receive a reply to it.
Everyone has laid out what must be laid out here. Perhaps you can use your influence to garner us some meetings where it counts, so that we might tell our story to the people that are making the laws. Even if they decide to kill us off, we want to make them pay by making them listen to the stories, and to the effects that their laws are having.
The Chairman: We will be looking at our current mandate to see if the subjects you have brought up this morning do fall into the mandate. At first blush, I am not sure if they do, but it would be a wonderful area for us to start looking at in much more detail than the current mandate allows. I will be discussing it with members of my committee to see if we might not have this as a potential area for us to look at in more depth.
If you have followed any of the workings of this current mandate, you will know that, if nothing else, we are very in-depth when we do tackle a subject. We have been on this mandate for 18 months. We make sure we cover all the angles and all the bases. We are taking your suggestion to heart, and it will be discussed in more depth.
You have brought up some subjects this morning that need fast action, and that will also be discussed by this committee. There are two angles to this; immediate action, but also a more long-term look at what has been affected.
Mr. Radosevic: I have developed a couple papers on ITQs myself, and I have studied the subject. If your mandate is the study of ITQs, the privatization of fisheries, or the rental of licenses or quotas, then there is a connection between the economic health of the people that you are talking to here and the changes that have been made.
The Mifflin plan was along the lines of the previous "herring area licensing plan," which is connected to the ITQ situation. If you are looking for a connection, I do not think it will be difficult for you to make it in connecting that with the current situation.
The Chairman: We have two groups coming in on November 17. There is a representative from the British Columbia Aboriginal Commission, and Mr. Roy Alexander and his group are coming with some aboriginal groups who want to discuss this topic with us. They want to discuss the impact that some of the actions are having on coastal villages, and also to give us some recommendations that fit directly within the mandate.
We will be reviewing all of this in the coming weeks anyway. As well, I should note that the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is appearing before us on November 26. I am quite sure that members of the committee will have some questions for him about this subject.
The documents that you wanted to present to members of the committee have been distributed, and we will look at them in more detail.
Ms Hunt: I envy the fact that you have a meeting with Mr. Anderson. The people on this panel have tried desperately to meet with him -- as have many others on the West Coast -- but he has not met with anybody.
As a matter of fact, desperation forced the fishermen from the Johnson Straits to threaten a blockade of the Seymour Narrows, just so they could meet with the Minister. The Minister would not meet with them even under those conditions, but we had a peaceful protest, and did not block the Seymour Narrows. While we were preparing to head out on the 40 boats that participated in this protest, we saw the Coast Guard and fisheries officers load guns onto their boat. I thought, "What country am I in that they are using guns? What do they think we will do?"
Some of Mr. Anderson's staff came to Campbell River, and they rented a hotel room three miles down from where we were having our meeting. There were maybe 600 fishermen waiting, but they rented a hotel room, and said, "you can send 10 people." They had armed RCMP guards with them. I do not know what they were so afraid of.
To give you an idea of the frustration that our fishermen felt this summer -- not only on the south coast but also on the north coast -- Minister Anderson cut a deal with the Americans that guaranteed them 25 per cent of the Fraser River sockeye. He did that without consulting with the Pacific Salmon Commission, of which both Mr. Haldane and I are members. He did that without consulting the native groups, although it had a huge impact on them. It is my understanding that we must be consulted when federal policy has an impact on our way of life.
We did not have an agreement in the north, so the Alaskans just fished to their hearts' content. Mr. Kelly's village is just a couple of miles from the border, and they could see those Alaskan fishers fishing when they could not get fish for their own sustenance. Those are the kinds of frustrations that our people felt while they were sitting on the beach and looking at the deals that Mr. Anderson was making with the Americans. It is very frustrating.
The social problems are taking a huge toll, not only on the native population, but also on the non-native population. You have heard of the suicides. I know of a man who has fished all his life. This year he could no longer support his wife and children, and he became delusional. His whole family was involved in the fishing industry. They had to have a family meeting and have this man committed. It would be like sending my father -- who is sitting here with me -- away.
The Chairman: I understand that you have to leave fairly soon, because you have another meeting at 10 o'clock. The members of the committee would like to ask one or two questions, if they possibly could.
Ms Hunt: I wanted to put a human face on this. There has been a huge increase in the use of the mental health resources that we have on the West Coast.
One of the saddest stories that I have heard is about a woman in Prince Rupert who had nothing else to feed her baby but coffee whitener and water. That is very sad.
We have come here with three requests. The first one is the most urgent, and it is for emergency funding for our coastal communities. The second is the need for funding from DIAND to deal with the escalating social problems -- family violence, suicide, marital breakdowns, et cetera.
The third has to do with the fact that Canada has an MOU with B.C. over fisheries, and it was signed a year or 16 months ago. Canada is not living up to that MOU. We would like to see that put on track. We would like to see Prime Minister Chrétien meet with our premier as soon as possible, in order to put things back on track as far as the MOU is concerned, and also to deal with our Pacific Salmon Treaty with the Americans. Those are the requests that we are making today.
Senator Stewart: The witnesses will have noticed that almost all the senators here this morning are from the Atlantic side of Canada, except for Senator Adams. That must tell you something about the work that the committee has been doing. We have been looking at the ITQ problem. Although I have read in the papers about the great difficulties on the West Coast, especially in the salmon fishery, I really know very little about the details of it.
Did you appear before the House of Commons Committee when it was doing its recent work?
Mr. Radosevic: Yes.
Senator Stewart: Do you feel that you received a fair hearing?
Mr. Radosevic: Yes. The House of Commons committee brief is actually in your book, and we support it.
Senator Stewart: Reference was made to the possibility that the big corporations and the DFO may be working together. You then referred to your own corporation. What do you mean by "big corporation"? I assume you do not include your own corporation in that term?
Mr. Henderson: What we mean is corporations within the fishing industry, such as the three majors in B.C. -- Ocean Fish, B.C. Packers, and Canadian Fish.
Senator Stewart: Do you have any evidence that shows that these corporations are working hand in glove with DFO?
Mr. Henderson: I will give you an example that occurred this year. There was a conference via telephone, and directions were given that the fish were not ready to catch yet. That came from the corporations. They opened it, and DFO closed it with the guidance of those companies. Those companies suggested that "we will not fish this week; we will fish next week."
The fish price was great, and the market was there. It seems as though they felt that they had better stop us from fishing, because if they did not, they would not be able to buy us out anymore. It is a catch-22 situation.
Mr. Radosevic: That question cannot be answered definitively. You see the major companies supporting the minister every time he makes any announcement, and he supports them in different announcements, but that still is not proof. There is no proof, but there is a result; slowly but surely, the licences and the control of the resource are moving into the hands of the major companies.
We cannot be certain whether that is deliberate or unintentional. You are seeing more licenses and more quotas moving over to them, however, and you are seeing control of the resource through financial arrangements. Everybody has had to invest more heavily to keep up with the Mifflin and Anderson plans, and that has meant moving to those with money -- the major corporations. You see the companies' control over the selective fishing proposals that have come up in the last six months or so. Those are things that are circumstantial evidence, not proof.
Senator Butts: It has been a very moving experience. I want to learn more and do what I can.
Are you sure that the fish are there for you? Is the number decreasing, or does it change from year to year?
Mr. Hunt: I have been fishing all of my life. There was a time in the 1960s when it looked like there was not that much fish around, but we still had openings. The way I see it is that the fish are coming back along the coast, not just in the Fraser River. You have a big run of chum salmon all up and down the coast up to Alaska. There is not a shortage of fish. The only problem that we have is that we cannot go out and catch them, because we are not allowed to do that. We are a lot different from the East Coast. We still have fish swimming by our homes.
Senator Butts: Do you agree with buying-back anybody? Is the buy-back wrong for everybody?
Mr. Radosevic: We all agree with the buy-back, but fishermen must run it. It must have an objective. There is no plan for the buy-back. They have just thrown a pile of money on the table. They do not have a plan for how many boats, how many gillnets, or how much goes to commercial. They have no objectives that anybody understands. We are opposed to that kind of buyback, and we want to be part of the planning process for any buyback. That is what we asked for.
Mr. Kelly: I have been fishing all my life as well. When you are forced into the buyback, what do you value? Your livelihood.
Senator Butts: You are not against all buybacks, then. You want them as long as you have a part in them. Is that clear?
Mr. Kelly: That is not totally true.
Senator Butts: I want the truth.
Mr. Kelly: We are forced to do it because of the financial situation we are in -- the crisis.
Senator Butts: You want to do the buyback if you agree with it.
Mr. Kelly: There are bank payments to be made, and there are moorage costs. There are big costs out there.
Mr. Henderson: We are talking about situations that we are being forced into. Mr. Hunt has been known as one of the top fishermen in upper Johnson Straits. His was one of the test vessels during the "no fishing" in Johnson Straits. It was the highest run on record for catch levels. We have never seen catch levels like that in a test fishery, not only in the upper straits but also the lower straits. It is the seventh largest run in history.
We have not addressed it here, because we do not have enough people that represent that area to let them know our exact feelings of this. I wish I had a larger crowd here; I want those people to talk and clear the air. I have seen it. I am a fisherman also. I also represent the First Nations.
Senator Butts: Do you want a fixed quota?
Ms Hunt: No.
Senator Butts: I will say things to Minister Anderson for you. Is there anything you want me to say specifically?
Mr. Henderson: We would like help and emergency assistance.
Senator Butts: I want specific things that I can tell him; things like you do not want a quota, but you might be into the buy-back if you were consulted about it.
Mr. Wadhams: We want to know the future of aboriginal participation in the fishing industry also.
Senator Butts: Specifically, you want to participate in decision-making.
Mr. Wadhams: We want to see a plan for us.
Mr. Henderson: That is the main issue here. He announced a buyback program, but what are the policies that go along with that? It is not clear to First Nations people, but he stated in many articles in the newspapers and to the public that he wants a buyback program.
He wants more involvement in the industry from the First Nations perspective, but what does that mean? Does that mean taking away somebody's livelihood, which is what it is to us? Is that what that means? Does that mean taking away somebody's opportunity to relieve him or herself of a boat that is worth $2 million, and a license that is worth half of that? If you have policy, if he is to involve First Nations people, then tell us. Will there be a new license team that represents a person like Alfred Hunt?
Senator Adams: I met with you last night at the aboriginal committee. You mentioned the road you built. I am interested in your economics for the future. You built a road a few years ago. The government contributed $800,000, and you say that the cost was $10 million.
Now the minister has stopped your fishing. Is that forestry business your own, or how does that system work in the future? You need to create some jobs in the community now that you cannot fish. I would like to have more information on that for the next time we meet with the minister. I would like to know what you think of the forestry area where you built the road.
Mr. Kelly: You want to hear what kind of forestry initiatives we have? We had a logging company within our community, and we built that road with the money that we made from it. We received $600,000 and $386,000 from the federal government, and $300,000 from the provincial government. During the time of logging, DIAND seized our timber, and that stopped us from doing any further upgrades that were to be done on our road.
We have a fish plant, and we use that road for transporting our goods out of our cannery. Not only that, our logging company was putting money into our fish plant. All that came to a halt with the seizure of our timber. We did not have any more financial resources to go around.
I do not know how much play the federal government had in the pilot project for a new fishery for our fish plant. That was not enough funding, so we had to shut our fish plant down in September. We could not afford to continue. We are trying to sustain things like this within our community, but you cannot do it with limited resources. We keep hitting roadblocks from different government agencies, and they stop us from moving forward.
Our logging company was very successful. It had money in the bank, but the minute that the seizures started, it bankrupted us. We had to sell our equipment. About $10 million was put towards that road from our logging, from the day it started up till the time it closed, without any government funding until a few years ago. It is not only my community; there are others that experience the same thing.
Senator Adams: In the meantime, the minister promised you $450 million to compensate you for not fishing right now. I heard last night that the sports fishermen, the local fishers, and everyone else have stopped. You cannot do anything, because you have no more customers. The sport fishing of salmon has been included with the end of fishing. Have those people been compensated or received part of the buyback, too, or how will that system work?
Mr. Kelly: We do not know exactly what the policies are. We are playing a guessing game. That is why we are here. We want some concrete answers as to which direction the industry will take. We know it is there. We lived it. We were there first, and we are not going away. We know as grassroots people what resources are there and how they come and go -- when they are big and when they are small. We try to tell the DFO this, but they will not listen.
Senator Adams: Are any boundaries imposed by DIAND on the fishing area?
Ms Hunt: We all fish together, except for the four bands that have pilot sales in B.C., which none of us are privy to. It is another example of how government policy has divided the native people. They gave pilot sales to a select few, and the rest of us have been left out.
Mr. Henderson: The favouritism towards the sports industry is very bothersome to First Nations people. As aboriginal people, we feel we have a historical right to fish in certain areas. The sports industry has yellow zones and red zones where we cannot fish. Yellow zones are specifically for sport -- special licensed areas for sports camps. That area is outside of an aboriginal fishery, and they have more right to that fish than we do. There is something wrong with this picture.
Senator Robichaud: Thank you for coming and for passing on your message. I am sure that the other members of the committee and I will try to pass it on to the people who should be hearing it.
In fisheries, it has never been easy. It is not easy, and it will never be easy, because so many parties want to access the fisheries, and you must somehow try to find a balance.
You say fish were swimming by your shores. You are mostly coastal communities. Are you in agreement with the inland First Nations communities, who also want to have their share protected, because they are at the end of the line? I do not want to raise any conflict here between the communities, but it is just a question that comes to my mind. There are so many interests, especially in the salmon.
Ms Hunt: We have no dispute with the upriver interior Indians who want their share of Section 351 fish for sustenance use. We have no problem with that. It is the same as us. Our tribe is allocated a certain number of fish for food, and social and ceremonial purposes, so we have no problem with that.
It is the pilot sales that divide us. That is, the people who are allowed to sell the food fish. People like my father have a $2 million investment in the commercial fishing industry, and a person who belongs to a band with a pilot sales agreement may only buy a boat for $1,500 and a net for $500. An uneven playing field was created when the pilot sales agreements were signed.
We have been very quiet, because generally we are polite people and do not speak out against each other. The crunch has come, however, and we have had to let fish go through our territory so the pilot sales groups can receive their guaranteed allocation of fish to sell on the public market. We do not have that right.
Senator Robichaud: That is taking it away from your communities, is that what you are saying?
Mr. Wadhams: What DFO is trying to do is play us against each other. They are trying to play First Nations against each other with this little policy plan that they have regarding pilot sales. That, again, is another part of management that is misused in British Columbia.
Senator Robichaud: I certainly would not agree with you that DFO is trying to play one nation against the other. On pilot sales, some communities were asking for their share. Just how they are getting it -- and if it takes away from someone else -- will always be the internal problem in fisheries. Once you give to one, somehow the others must have less to share it. It is not an easy question.
I certainly would not want to promote any division amongst the native communities -- of the entire fishing community, for that matter. We are talking about sharing a resource where there is not enough for everybody.
Ms Hunt: When Mr. Tobin was Minister of Fisheries, he stated then that there would be no expansion in the pilot sales meeting -- that no groups other than the four or five that already had it would get it. Since the time when he was the minister, there has been no expansion of the pilot sales.
I do not think they really know what to do with this. It causes so many problems with the non-native community, which has banded together and started a coalition. Within our own community, the commercial fishermen who are heavily invested in the fishery do not have the same opportunity anymore to utilize their expensive equipment. Their access to the resource is diminishing, but the pilot sales group, which comes under Section 35.1, is guaranteed its 650,000 fish. They stop at nothing -- or DFO stops at nothing -- in their management of the fisheries.
There are two rules on the West Coast: one rule for the commercial fishermen, and one for the pilot sales groups. That is not right. It creates a lot of problems between groups. We are usually very polite and do not talk about other native groups. It has come down to the point now where we must fight.
Mr. Wadhams: Historically the nations such as the Haida nation have always had access to the Fraser River stocks. We do not want to cause confusion, but confusion will be created if DFO just prioritizes a select few within our communities in B.C. We will leave it at that.
Mr. Henderson: I do not know if people were not listening. Policy has been created to create division. That is what is occurring, and that is what you are questioning. If it is a clear message to us that First Nations will have goals and objectives, what are they? If our licenses as native commercial fishermen are no good anymore, where do we go? That right has been there for hundreds of years.
We have been commercial fishermen, and that is how we have survived. Tracts of land are little pockets and rocks; we did not receive miles and miles of land. We are given resources, and it is documented. You are talking about a policy that has been created where I stand up and argue a point alongside my non-native counterparts because of the investment our people have. We are commercial fishermen. Our livelihoods come first.
I love the fact that aboriginal people have a right to catch fish. When it affects the livelihoods and families who have survived through that resource all their lives, I must speak up as a leader of my community. It is a responsibility, and the onus is on me to make sure that those things are brought to the attention of people across the country.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. The committee is considering receiving a firsthand view of what is happening on the West Coast. We still have not finalized that decision. We would like to visit the coastal communities -- not with any fanfare, and not with great deal of noise and hoopla. We would basically like to go to your towns and villages and have a firsthand view of what is happening. As parliamentarians, sometimes it is more helpful to us to see the nature of the impact on the buildings, the towns, the villages and so on. We are considering it, and we hope to be able to do it within the next few months. We look forward to seeing you there if that happens.
Ms Hunt: Each of us will help you facilitate that. If you call on us, we will be there.
The committee continued in camera.