THE STANDING SENATE COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS
EVIDENCE
OTTAWA, Thursday, November 30, 2023
The Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans met with videoconference this day at 9:47 a.m. [ET] to examine and report on Canada’s seal populations and their effect on Canada’s fisheries.
Senator Bev Busson (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
[English]
The Deputy Chair: Honourable senators, good morning. My name is Bev Busson, and I have the pleasure of conducting this meeting. Today, we’re conducting a meeting of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. Should any technical challenges arise, particularly in relation to interpretation, please signal this to the chair or the clerk and we will work to resolve the issue.
Before we begin, I would ask the members of the committee to introduce themselves to the witness.
Senator Kutcher: Senator Kutcher, Nova Scotia.
Senator Ravalia: Senator Ravalia, Newfoundland and Labrador. Welcome.
Senator Duncan: Pat Duncan, senator for the Yukon.
Senator Francis: Senator Francis from Epekwitk, Prince Edward Island.
Senator C. Deacon: Colin Deacon, Nova Scotia.
Senator Petten: Iris Petten, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Senator Cordy: Jane Cordy from Nova Scotia.
Senator McPhedran: Marilou McPhedran from Manitoba.
The Deputy Chair: On October 4, 2022, the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was authorized to examine and report on the Canada seal populations and their effect on Canada’s fisheries. Today, under this mandate, the committee is hearing from Carl Sidney, former chief of the Teslin Tlingit Council and long-time member of the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee.
On behalf of members of the committee, thank you for being here today, Mr. Sidney, and certainly thank you for all of your patience regarding the technical issues we’ve been experiencing. I understand that you have some opening remarks.
Following your presentation, members of this committee are anxious to ask you a number of questions from your experience. You have the floor, Mr. Sidney. Thank you very much.
Carl Sidney, as an individual: Good morning. Thank you, Madam Chair. After all these difficulties connecting, I’m sort of lost for words now. Thank you for inviting me to speak on this very important issue. It is very important to my people, myself and many other people along the Yukon River.
I have to let you know that, right now, I’m not 100% knowledgeable about the other rivers, the Taku River, the Stikine River, the Alsek River, but I do believe the seal population has increased over the last 10 or 20 years, ever since it’s been protected by government. I understand the same issue is happening along the Atlantic; it’s not only the Pacific Coast.
From time immemorial, we have survived and managed fish and wildlife. Being raised up on the land by my grandmother, we depended strictly on animals and fish, and we’ve always managed those wildlife, the fish and the birds to the best of our ability, especially managing ourselves. We can’t manage fish and wildlife, but we can manage ourselves to co-exist with those species.
I’ve been informed by many of my colleagues, being a member of the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee, the Yukon River Panel and the Teslin Tlingit Council, I’ve had the opportunity to visit practically every village along the Yukon River and from the headwaters in Teslin, the 2,400-kilometre river, all the way to the Bering Sea. I visited probably every visit along the Yukon River. I do have colleagues and many friends who live over there, especially at the mouth of the river. I talk a lot with them. We do have a weekly conference call which begins at the end of May every year, every Tuesday, and it ends sometime in September when the chum fishery has finished its migration.
During those meetings, I hear a lot from the people, especially those who live at the mouth of the river, about the gathering of the seals. When the fish begin to come into the mouth of the river, the seal population increases. These people all live off the land also, even more so than we do because today we do have jobs and people making money. We have stores where we can go for our food. But those communities along the Yukon River are very remote, and they depend a great deal on especially the salmon and other wildlife, birds and animals.
Over probably the last five or six years, I’ve always heard concerns about the gathering of the seals at the mouth of the Yukon River, especially when the salmon start coming in, migrating from the ocean into the river for their 2,000-mile journey to our headwaters to be able to reproduce.
Over time, I’ve heard from many other people who use the salmon along the B.C. coast that the seals have been protected. All the way from California — maybe even further down — all the way up to the Bering Sea, the seals are protected. There was a time when the First Nations people who lived along the coast were able to manage that animal to a place where they didn’t have such a big impact on the salmon.
I understand, for the harbour seals, their main diet is chinook salmon. I just don’t know what exactly the government can do to be able to assist and help. I’d want to say they should manage the seal population better, so that our salmon resource survives.
The seals are not the only problem. I understand there is a climate change, but I can’t really say that that’s impacting the salmon as much as the overfishing and bycatch. When the fishermen go out and fish pollock, they also take a great number of chinook salmon. Those bycatch salmon are not even adults yet; they are only three or four years old and of no value to the commercial fishery at the time. They take up room on their boats to bring them back into a place where they could actually share with the people who need that, so they just dump them overboard. And I don’t imagine they survive because they are pretty much crushed with a couple of tons of pollock on top of them. They are of no value, no use, so they are just dumped overboard. That’s my understanding.
I guess there are a few diseases that also impact the chinook salmon and probably a little bit of the chum but more so the chinook.
Along with the seals, which are not the only predation impacting the chinook salmon, there are also beluga whales that hang out at the mouth of the Yukon River at the same time the salmon begin their journey into the river to reproduce.
These are all stories that I’ve heard from our teleconferences that we have every week, hosted by the Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association in Alaska.
I don’t know how much more I could add to that except how much, in the past, we as First Nation people have depended on this salmon for our life, for our diet, actually, and for the health of our people. Today, we have 30-year-old people who have not been to a fish camp because, in Teslin, at the headwaters, we have not fished salmon for 30 years. We actually limited our fishery beginning 30 years ago. I think we limited our fishery for a couple of years, and then we put even tighter constraints on it. Coming up to about 10 years ago, we don’t fish at all.
We haven’t had our own chinook salmon fish camps for 30 years or probably a little more than that. We actually buy our salmon from another First Nation, from our brothers and sisters over in northern British Columbia. We pay for it ourselves, individually, but to have our own salmon as we used to depend on so much in the past — we don’t do that anymore.
I was asked to present my testimony to this standing committee. I thank you. The Honourable Pat Duncan, senator for Yukon, has invited me, and I’m ready to be able to answer any questions you may have.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you sincerely for your patience. There are senators here who would like to ask you questions.
Senator Petten: Good morning. Thank you for your comments. Do you feel that climate change has had an impact on the stocks? And can you clarify for us, when you talk about seals, what species of seals are you referring to?
Mr. Sidney: Harbour seals. What was the first question?
Senator Petten: Do you think climate change has impacted the seals and the stocks off of your coast?
Mr. Sidney: I don’t know if climate change impacts seals, but I do understand this from the many meetings that I’ve attended with the Yukon River panel. They give presentations on the studies that they have done.
The Yukon River is warming up. My understanding is that the salmon require a certain temperature of the water to be able to survive and find the place where they reproduce. They tend to stay out in the middle of the river, and deeper, where the water is a suitable temperature for them. They are vulnerable to changes in the water temperature.
Yes, climate change does impact the salmon, but I’m not sure about the seals.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you for making time to speak with us today.
I’m feeling a little confused by your statement that, for 30 years, you have not been able to harvest or eat salmon. The cause of that is perhaps an element of climate change, perhaps an element of seal populations and other populations. Could you tell us a bit more about what happened 30 years ago?
Mr. Sidney: Thirty years ago, we used to get seven- and eight-year-old salmon weighing between 75 and 100 pounds. Being at the headwaters, 2,000 miles from the mouth, our elders indicated that there was something wrong with the salmon. We were not getting the big salmon anymore.
At the time, I sat on the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee. You have to remember that I sat on the committee for 13 years. I was told to raise that issue with other fisher people along the Yukon River, which I did. We indicated that something was wrong. Because the elders have been fishing for so many years, they noticed that. I raised the issue with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, or DFO, and nothing was done about it.
Over the years, the situation got worse. Even more of the large salmon were disappearing and not showing up in the headwaters. Our elders asked us to cut back on our fishery, so we cut back, closing one day of the week. This went to two days a week, and, as the situation got worse, we cut it down to just fishing on the weekend, which is only two or three days. That continued for 10 or 15 years.
By the way, we used to have fish camps where people harvested the salmon. It was a big process. The whole family went there at the beginning of August and would stay until school started. They didn’t just harvest salmon; they did a lot of learning and teaching about life skills and living on the land. A whole host of different things were taught at fish camp, such as respecting the water, land and animals.
That went to the wayside. Today, the fish camps are totally grown over and nobody is going there anymore. We fished two to three days of the week, and since about 10 years ago, we haven’t fished the salmon at all.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you for being with us and for putting up with all the technical difficulties. It is very much appreciated.
We have been talking about seals, but I would like to get your opinion on the sea lions. I understand that the population of sea lions has tripled in the area in the last decade. Because of the warmer waters, they are moving up the coast from the California and Oregon area. They eat a lot of salmon. It’s not clear, from what I understand, that the seals eat as much. I understand that in the 1900s, there was a hunting bounty of $2 per nose on sea lions and salmon, and that was rescinded in the 1970s.
What are your thoughts on the sea lions as opposed to the seals? From what I understand, scientists are not clear about whether increased populations of seals are causing the decrease in salmon or, if they are contributing, how much they are contributing. I would like your thoughts on those issues: the sea lion population, the demise of the bounty of the hunt and the differential impact of seals.
Mr. Sidney: Unfortunately, I don’t have much information about sea lions, especially the bounty. This is the first I have heard of that. But I wouldn’t doubt it. As I said, they were managed a long time ago, but today they are protected. That seems to be the big issue for myself and a lot of other people along the Yukon River who rely on salmon.
I’m not sure about the sea lions. What I hear about are the harbour seals. I’m sorry that I don’t have much information on sea lions.
Senator Kutcher: That’s absolutely fine. I was just wondering whether you had. I appreciate that very much. Thank you.
Senator Cordy: Thank you very much for being with us this morning. It’s probably very early where you are.
We have travelled to Newfoundland. We have seen the seals and heard from seal fishers.
In terms of the market for seals and seal products, being from Alaska, how limited is that because of the American laws on the sealing industry and seal products?
Mr. Sidney: I’m sorry; that’s another area that I don’t have much information about. From following newscasts once in a while, I know that Greenpeace and those types of people are totally against harvesting and wearing products that are made from seal.
I don’t know much about the impacts because we don’t get seals where we are. I hear on the news about bans of other species in the ocean that contain ivory. They are cutting back on selling those products that Inuit people make their living off of through carving. That’s impacting them because they are protecting all the animals out in the sea that have tusks. I hear that on the news; I don’t really hear it from people. Same thing with the seal products.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you very much for being with us today, Mr. Sidney. It’s a heartbreaking story that you tell, truly. It’s one where you feel, it seems, completely unable to help solve the problem. You don’t have the tools to solve the problem that has affected your community so profoundly.
I’m wondering if you could reach forward and think, if there were things that you could do, what would they be? If someone gave you a magic wand to start to address this destruction of the ecosystem, what would you recommend to us that we consider? Thank you.
Mr. Sidney: Thank you, senator. That is something that I think we all wish for, that magic wand.
One of the most critical things that has been in my mind for a couple of years now, and I actually know that it’s not going to happen — and I just want to thank our Senator Pat Duncan and our MP Brendan Hanley for taking a host of our people down to Washington to bring this issue forward. My biggest wish would be a moratorium on the Bering Sea. I know that’s a big ask, it’s a multi-billion dollar industry for Alaska, but if we ever want to see salmon in the future, I think that would have to be one of the most detrimental things that could ever happen: to have a moratorium on the Bering Sea for 5 to 10 years to be able to bring the salmon stock back.
Another issue that I think would complement — I’m not a sadist or anything, I don’t have anything against animals, but sometimes you get too many of one species. That bounty that was talked about for the seals — they have to be managed. The government cannot let that species get out of hand, which is happening right now. Somehow or another, the government or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans are going to have to — I’m understanding right now that the First Nations people along the coasts around Bella Coola, outside of Vancouver and Haida Gwaii, all the way up the coast, the First Nations people are actually out there harvesting even though it’s against the law. They are still out there doing it because they totally feel that something has to be done with the seal population.
Those are the two wishes you could wave over with your magic wand. One is for the government to be able to better manage the seal population, and the other one is to advocate to the United States government that to be able to have the salmon survive into the future, there has to be a moratorium on fishing in the Bering Sea for 5 to 10 years. Thank you.
Senator C. Deacon: Thank you for your thoughts. The moratorium you are looking for is on trawling, I’m guessing, but if you could be very specific in that regard. Thank you, sir.
Mr. Sidney: Yes. Deep-sea fishing. Trawlers. It’s international; it’s not just the Americans. There is an international water line there where other countries also come and take that resource.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Sidney.
Senator Francis: Thank you for joining us this morning. Could you tell us, in your view, does traditional Indigenous knowledge related to the seals get the same consideration as Western knowledge?
Mr. Sidney: I’m sorry, I don’t understand that.
Senator Francis: Does Indigenous knowledge get the same respect as Western knowledge when it comes to looking at the seal problem?
Mr. Sidney: I think that issue is not only with the seals but any issue. A lot of people refer to fish and animals as resources, that word just keeps wanting to jump out of my mouth, but it’s not a resource to us. A resource is something that you make money off of is my understanding, so I don’t really like calling it that. I call them fish and animals.
It’s coming to a point now where my work is in regard to traditional knowledge. I would love to be able to see the traditional knowledge given the same weight as scientific knowledge simply because traditional knowledge comes from actually experiencing what’s happening out on the land and in the water. Scientific knowledge, on the other hand, is desktop. It’s mostly desktop studies that have been handed down to generations and generations through universities, et cetera. I have been advocating for many years to give the same weight to traditional knowledge and scientific knowledge, and it’s coming to a point where people are finally starting to realize how important it is to have traditional knowledge.
Senator Francis: Thank you very much for that.
Mr. Sidney: You are welcome.
Senator Ravalia: Thank you very much, Mr. Sidney. My question is focused on your relationship with your Alaskan neighbours. To what extent do you dialogue with individuals on the other side of the border who are obviously being impacted by many of the things that you are going through? To what extent are they in any way able to regulate some of the factors that are resulting in the diminution of the salmon stocks?
Mr. Sidney: Thank you for that question. How do I start this? The villages along the Yukon River in Alaska are very remote. The only way to get to those places is by plane. There are no bed and breakfasts — no, I shouldn’t say that — there are no hotels. When you travel over there, you have to billet. That will be sort of like a bed and breakfast, I guess. You get to stay with these people and live with them, and you become, after a number of times of visiting them — in one village, a man called me his son from Canada. So you do become pretty close, especially when they realize that you are living the same way as they are, even though we are 2,000 miles apart.
We still live the same way, and we eat the same food. You could become quite close, and that’s where I get a lot of my knowledge in regards to the chinook salmon, chum salmon. There are two different runs of chum salmon. There is one that is a spring run, and then the chinook run begins right after the spring run, and then the fall chum comes right after the chinook salmon. There is a big overlap there. There was a time when the food fishery was the chum salmon and they actually fed the chinook salmon to their dogs because everything is very expensive, including dog food. We could understand where I come from, and the headwaters that we relied on the chinook salmon, which they fed to their dogs, but we got along.
They do eat the chinook salmon. There are different times, like at Christmastime, I get phone calls from some of my friends over there whom I have billeted with, and we just talk about how things are going and what’s going on with the salmon. We don’t understand. We blame it on, as I said, climate change and on everything else, but nothing ever seems to get done about it.
You have to understand that every day there is salmon on the table. Every day that I stayed there — and there were times that I stayed there for up to five days — there was always salmon on the table. All day long, everybody. They eat it probably every day.
The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Sidney.
Senator Duncan: Thank you very much, Mr. Sidney, for joining us so early in the morning.
You have spoken about the Yukon River and the salmon impact. Could you also address the issue of southeast Alaska and the salmon? My lifelong understanding is that the headwaters of the Alsek, the Stikine and the Taku, as well as the Yukon River, are significant areas for the salmon to travel, and these are transboundary rivers. My informal hearing is that there are a number of seals at the headwaters of these rivers in southeast Alaska. Is that your understanding as well? Is that there is a tremendous number or an increase in seals in this area?
Mr. Sidney: Thank you, Senator Duncan, and thank you for inviting me.
As I stated earlier, when I began this conversation, I did indicate that issue in regards to seals stems all the way from, I think, Oregon and all the way up the whole coast of the Pacific Ocean all the way into the Bering Sea. In regards to the Stikine and the Taku, I believe that it’s the same issue.
Seals are populating, and nothing is being done in regard to that except for protecting them. I also have a lot of colleagues who live along the coast, from Vancouver all the way up to the Taku, maybe even up the Alsek. There are communities over there with people actually out there hunting them even though they are protected. They are willing to take that risk. These are friends that I have worked closely with in regard to salmon. I hear that from them. That seal population issue is all the way up the whole coast of the Pacific.
The Chair: Thank you very much. I appreciate that. If you can bear with us, Mr. Sidney, we have some people who would like to have a chance to ask another question.
Mr. Sidney: I’m okay. Take as long as you want.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator McPhedran: I also want to add my appreciation. It just dawned on me how early in the morning it is for you, so thank you very much.
I’m wondering if you could just share with us, so we could have a better understanding of, what the role of women is in your communities. Is there any craft industry in your communities? If so, could you tell us a bit about that and also about the role of women?
Mr. Sidney: Interesting you asked that. My government right now is the Teslin Tlingit Council. We are one of the 11 self-governing First Nations in the Yukon, but there are 14 First Nations. We come from a place where our leadership used to be appointed. We have five clans that govern our self-government. Those five clans have clan leaders who are selected by each clan, and they are also appointments.
The women are referred to as matriarchs. Decisions are not made without first consulting with the women. I don’t know how you knew that, but you knew there was a little catch there, didn’t you? Senator Duncan was probably talking to you. We hold our women up to a place where they are actually the decision makers. I mentioned clan leaders. The clan leaders are simply spokespeople. They get their direction from the women. Those are matriarchs; I’m talking about the older women in each clan. They get their directions and they give their voices in regards to appointments for clan leaders and appointments for leadership, like the chief and deputy chief.
We have an election coming up next year. I actually sit on this committee that was established by our general council, which is the governing body of our government, and they are made up of 25 people, with five from each clan. They make all the laws, they pass resolutions and they make all the governing decisions. I have been sitting on this committee, it’s a constitutional committee. We are redeveloping our constitution. We’re going back to our old system. We adopted the European way of elections way voting, and we’re trying to do away with that. This discussion actually came up as recently as yesterday. We just finished having a talk with the Elders council, and that was one of the big issues was how decisions used to be made. Via communicating with the matriarchs, all the way to the clan leaders, the women were actually the decision makers.
Yes, we still make moccasins and everything, and it is getting handed down more and more to our younger generations. We have a lot of different kinds of workshops and stuff like that which happen, especially throughout the winter when it’s too cold — except for this year — to teach the younger people how to make different things like moccasins. Somehow or another, this new thing started with fish skins. Lo and behold, we don’t have salmon, but we buy salmon from our neighbours, and we save the skin, tan them and they make different things out of those. Wallets and different artifacts. That does get handed down, yes.
Senator McPhedran: Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much.
Senator Kutcher: Thank you very much. On the fish skins, I was just in Hokkaido in northern Japan and with the Ainu peoples there, and they make moccasins, coats and jackets out of smoked salmon skins, which is fascinating. It’s the first I have ever seen of that.
I want to follow up on your observation about the warmer waters. My understanding is that the waters off the coast of Alaska have warmed substantially in the last three decades, and there are reports now of chum salmon spawning in the Arctic, which they have never done before on the Anaktuvuk and Itkillik rivers in that area. I am wondering if you have had any conversations with Indigenous peoples that live in those areas, if you know what they are seeing, whether they are confirming these other reports of the spawning of the chum not so much where they have been traditionally spanning, but because of warmer waters, they are moving up to where the waters are cooler and they are spawning in different rivers, and I am just wondering if you have any information about that.
Mr. Sidney: Okay. I probably have as much information as you do. In a lot of these areas, they are too far away from me to have any correspondence with people. In places such as the Mackenzie River, which is way up around the Arctic Circle, there are actually chinook and chum salmon being caught way over there. I’ve heard of that, yes.
One of the major causes of the warming of the rivers is that the glaciers are receding, and most of our watersheds are fed by glaciers. Hence, you get the cooler water. They have receded so far now that they are not contributing very much to the systems — to the watersheds. That keeps the water cool.
Thank you for your question.
The Deputy Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Sidney, for taking the time, and also for your immense patience in dealing with the technical issues. Thank you for taking the time to appear before the committee. You had a lot to say that was incredibly useful to us in our study on the seals and salmon population. I thank you again so much for taking the time and for your patience, and I want to, at this point, adjourn the meeting. Thank you very much.
Mr. Sidney: Thank you very much.
(The committee adjourned.)