FOPO Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 2nd SESSION

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

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1745

The Chair (Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.))

Mr. John D. Ward (Spokesperson, Taku River Tlingit First Nation)

Mr. Richard Erhardt (Fisheries Biologist, Taku River Tlingit First Nation)

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1750

»

1755

¼

1800

The Chair

Mr. Peter Kirby (Capital Projects Manager and Economic Development Officer, Taku River Tlingit First Nation)

¼

1805

Mr. John D. Ward

The Chair

Mr. Andy Burton (Skeena, Canadian Alliance)

¼

1810

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Andy Burton

¼

1815

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Andy Burton

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Andy Burton

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Andy Burton

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Richard Erhardt

Mr. Andy Burton

Mr. Richard Erhardt

Mr. Andy Burton

The Chair

¼

1820

Mr. Richard Erhardt

The Chair

Mr. Richard Erhardt

The Chair

Mr. Andy Burton

The Chair

Mr. Richard Erhardt

The Chair

Mr. Peter Kirby

The Chair

Mr. Peter Kirby

The Chair

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia—Matane, BQ)

¼

1825

Mr. Richard Erhardt

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Peter Kirby

¼

1830

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy

Mr. Richard Erhardt

The Chair

Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.)

Mr. Carmen Provenzano

Mr. John D. Ward

¼

1835

¼

1840

Mr. Carmen Provenzano

The Chair

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Carmen Provenzano

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Carmen Provenzano

The Chair

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC)

Mr. John D. Ward

¼

1845

Mr. Loyola Hearn

The Chair

Mr. Peter Kirby

Mr. Loyola Hearn

Mr. Peter Kirby

¼

1850

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP)

The Chair

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. John D. Ward

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Richard Erhardt

¼

1855

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Richard Erhardt

Mr. Peter Stoffer

Mr. Richard Erhardt

The Chair

Mr. Richard Erhardt

Mr. Loyola Hearn

Mr. Peter Stoffer

The Chair

Mr. Peter Kirby

Mr. John D. Ward

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans

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NUMBER 044

l

2nd SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Wednesday, May 28, 2003

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

»  (1745)  

[English]

    The Chair (Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order.

    The order of the day, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), is a continuation of our study on fisheries management practices.

    This evening our guests, from the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, are John Ward, Richard Erhardt, and Peter Kirby. They're going to make a power-point presentation, and when that's through we'll have members ask questions.

    We know you have to leave at approximately five minutes to seven in order to get to the Senate fisheries committee, so without further ado, please proceed.

    Mr. John D. Ward (Spokesperson, Taku River Tlingit First Nation): Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    On behalf of Taku River Tlingit First Nation I'd like to thank all the committee members for taking time out of their busy schedules to come and listen to and view our presentation, and to hear our vision of harmony on the waters in the Taku River region.

    I'll start with some stuff that's just run of the mill.

    For countless generations we've been stewards of our traditional territory and have maintained good stewardship throughout all its boundaries, taking care of our resources that our people have always relied on. Our elders today continually remind us of our responsibilities there, and of how things have been passed down orally from generation to generation. Today we have finally started to really get serious about embracing that responsibility for good stewardship, in particular for this one resource, wild salmon.

    It's always been a struggle to try to dovetail things with science and so on. Our elders sometimes feel kind of frustrated when trying to teach us what is important and how we go about carrying out our responsibilities with stewardship. It's been a difficult time, just in recent history, to try to merge those two philosophies, if you will. So we embrace the aboriginal fishing strategy, beginning with the process of co-management.

    Our territory is a little under 20,000 square kilometres. It's a transboundary region, as part of this river runs into Alaska state, under the United States' jurisdiction, and it's located in the very northwestern part of British Columbia. Much of this region is pretty much in its pristine state, as there are no real roads or that type of access into this particular valley or this watershed. There is no real ongoing or current industrial development happening in this area.

    This really presents a unique opportunity for some proactive conservation measures that could be done in this particular area. We perhaps can create this model, if you will. To my mind, it's about as close as you can get to a genesis. A real opportunity exists here to study this whole thing to see how the wildlife and the forestry and all these ecosystems work.

    When we embraced this responsibility, we thought the important thing was to know what was in there, how it worked, and what the needs were of all of these things, these interconnected things. And the more we got into that, we saw how all of it was so dependent on the salmon. So we really have to focus in this area.

    We're fortunate that we were able to pick up a model, or more like a discussion paper--Richard will expand on this a little bit more--produced by the British Columbia government and the federal government. I had my discussion with the regional decision-maker at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on this, and we had agreement to pursue this together, jointly. Over the years it took some time, but we found a way to really cooperate together and speak the same language, through some trial and error and some trusting give-and-taking.

    So we see this process as really a vehicle to merge the traditional ecological knowledge with the science, and we strive to continue doing that.

    In the end, we have sustainable ecosystems for future generations that will benefit not just the Taku River Tlingits but all who have an interest in our watershed. Through all these efforts, harmony is what's really been created. From this we would hope to have your support for ongoing harmony into the future.

    With that, I'd just like to turn it over to Richard, who will talk about how it's structured and how it works.

    Gunalchish. Thank you.

    Mr. Richard Erhardt (Fisheries Biologist, Taku River Tlingit First Nation): Thank you, John.

    Mr. Chair, I'd also like to thank the committee for this opportunity to present. I'll get into a few details here.

    This is a pictorial representation of the current management structure in the transboundary region. There are just a couple of things to point out. Because it is an international transboundary region, we also work closely with folks on the Alaska side, Alaska Fish and Game, the fishers there, and the Douglas Indian Association.

    The other thing to note here is that in the development of this process, we have a watershed-based fish stability planning working group up here, which is meant to feed information directly into the various technical committees and panels and so on. However, there is no formal connection at this point.

    We started developing partnerships with DFO and the other fisheries agencies quite awhile before this process began. Our spokesperson, John, was instrumental in that outreach in developing these cooperative relationships, which really facilitated bringing this process to bear.

    So what is this process we're talking about? It's strategic planning. I'm sure everyone here does strategic thinking on a daily basis--prioritizing your own time, your resources, and staff to get the best results. We tried to do this from a fisheries co-management perspective, with one of the principles being what could be termed as a “fish first” approach.

    It's also designed to be a living plan. It's not meant to be a document that sits on the shelf afterwards but an ongoing co-management tool in the sense that once the main body of the work is done, it can then be used to monitor progress as a measuring stick in terms of how management is functioning. It's also very good at developing these partnerships that I've spoken to.

    It's community driven. We were very fortunate in that.... We're now in the second year of this process, and the first winter we had all of our meetings right in Atlin, in the region, and this past winter the working group set up meetings on the Alaska side, in Juneau, and engaged with different technical people and representatives on that side.

    I'll now run you through the basic stages and structure.

    The initial framework for this process was developed jointly by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Province of B.C. It was produced as a guidebook. What really needed to happen was for somebody to pick this up and run with it, which is what we tried to do here. There were a lot of details to work out to make it into a functioning model.

    There are four stages. We're in the third stage. We're planning on having the full document finalized in the next little while.

    This chart on the bottom here I'll be mentioning quite a bit. This is the method we follow, and I'll try to break it down for you today.

    In this section here, we prepared documents that we separated into “profile” and “overview”. Profile includes all the existing biological and ecological facts. We did an extensive amount of homework on this. On the other side there is the overview category, including such things as government legislation and policy, first nations values and principles, and the community interests.

»  (1750)  

    All of this information we organized, and then it was used as sort of a filter to come up with our priorities and our strategies.

    Just stepping away for a bit, one of the first things we did is separate the region into five different watersheds. Each of them ecologically is unique, and possess different characteristics. This was done to make it a little easier to select planning units.

    I'll talk about the profile now. This is the broad regional profile. Here we organized and compiled all the information. There is a lot of scientific data out there with the various agencies, the various staff, some of whom are still around and some of whom have moved on to other positions. We put that into one source.

    To give you one example, the map displayed here is a map of sockeye salmon distribution in spawning areas that were created as a result of this process on our GIS system, using the different information we collected. The other thing to note here is that we used not only the scientific data but also the traditional knowledge. We sat down with elders, with maps in front of them, and that information was used at par in this GIS system. It's actually in the program separated out; you can click on an area and it will show you where the information came from and its source. A few other things we did are related to the data gaps that are missing and the status of the different species.

    I'll talk about the overview documents that bring together all the information. Again, these were not in relation to the biology end of things but government legislation and policy, first nation values, and community interests and concerns.

    To give you an example, the chart displayed here is a summary of legislation and policy that directly relates to the watershed planning. We organized it by the type of document, the government and agency it came from, and the different principles listed within. This was so that when we were picking our priorities we could ensure that it was supported in things like government legislation and policy.

    From there we selected our planning priorities. Many planning priorities were listed, and we had to pick out the top three that we would be focusing on. We used a filter of questions, or a “matrix”, we called it, to select these planning priorities based on the profile and overview documents. For example, these were some of the questions: Is this priority a first nation interest and value? Is it important to them? Was it mentioned in the community meetings we had? Is it of community interest? Is it reflected in the government legislation and policy? This was the checkpoint we used to select our priorities so that they were based on all of those things in both the profile and the overview.

    There's another unique thing about the priorities we chose and that displays an integrated approach. For example, we listed three priorities. One is an area, the lower Taku, the first nursery for fish...very important, with high fisheries values. So that was an area.

    The next priority we picked was actually a co-management approach, stock-specific, whereby we start looking at individual stocks instead of whole populations.

    The third one was actually a fish species, the wild chum salmon, where there were some concerns in that area.

    Once we had our priorities, we developed action strategies for each of those. Again, same process, very simple; we did a profile and an overview of each of those priorities, so in more detail now. And from that we picked our resulting action strategies, which were made up of goals, objectives, and who was going to do what, with roles, responsibilities, etc.

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    As well, certain pilot projects were identified in those action strategies. One example is a project that the Taku River Tlingit had started previous to this process, a habitat mapping model.

    The picture in the right-hand corner is actually an aerial photo. We can also use satellite imagery. We had aerial photography done, and then we used our GIS system to overlay these different habitat area types onto the map. What is unique about this is that it visually depicts how the fish use this system in the watershed.

    One of the advantages is that it gives you this spatial or visual depiction, and you don't need to be a fisheries biologist to utilize it. In our program you can click on an area here, and it will give you a description of what the habitat is like, what fish are there, and so on. It's a very useful tool for such things as land planning, land use planning, environmental assessment, and all of those things.

    I've spoken about the advantages and benefits from a technical, biological, traditional perspective. Now I'll turn things over to Peter Kirby, who will explain some more benefits that relate more to a community-based approach and economic stability.

    Peter.

¼  (1800)  

    The Chair: Mr. Kirby.

    Mr. Peter Kirby (Capital Projects Manager and Economic Development Officer, Taku River Tlingit First Nation): Gunalchish, merci, and thank you, Mr. Chair, for having us here and allowing us to speak and to present this information.

    I'm here to talk about Taku Wild, a derivative project of the watershed-based fish sustainability planning project. The inset in the corner of this screen shows the organic pepper-smoked salmon product. It's retort-packaged. I've brought along a couple of packages to show you. One of them is on the screen there. Another product is flavoured with organic maple syrup from Quebec.

    Taku Wild has a mission, contained in the articles of incorporation, that requires that the proceeds of the project go back into habitat maintenance and restoration. Of course, we need to ensure that we sustainably manage the fishery, and that's what the watershed planning is about.

    We have plans in marketing for an estimated growth in revenue of $260,000 in the 2003 fiscal year, going up to more than $400,000 the year after. Some real jobs and some real economic development can happen through this planning process and the Taku Wild project beyond that.

    This is very much a community business in that we buy fish solely from the Taku River. We buy from all the fishers, and we have people at home now preparing for the fishing season with all the fisher stakeholders in the region--transportation people, expediters, and those in different spinoff jobs from the direct economic development of Taku Wild fishery.

    We market in Canada, of course, and in the United States and Japan, and are making inroads in Europe currently. We have a website, www.takuwild.com, www.takuwild.ca, or www.takuwild.org, and we've locked up as much as we could of that.

    We hope to have a processing plant built in Atlin in the next few years. Currently the processing takes place in Juneau, Alaska. It's about a three-hour ride from where the fish are caught to Juneau, or about a 45-minute flight, which is a typical way to bring the fresh wild salmon from the Taku River.

    Currently we retail this product for about $18, which is a little bit below what many other similar packages go for. And I say “similar” because we are the only organic retort-packaged salmon we know about in the world--certainly in North America.

    There will be an opportunity to ask questions later, and I hope I can answer them all. With that, I'll pass it back to our spokesperson, who set this in motion in the first place, John Ward.

¼  (1805)  

    Mr. John D. Ward: Thank you, Peter, and thank you, Richard, for your presentations, and thanks again, Mr. Chair.

    I would like to bring to your attention a couple of recommendations we're hoping you could perhaps view. This whole thing would not have gotten this far if we hadn't had that push from our elders in the community to encourage us to take that step of faith, to really give and take with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on a regional level, and start having some cooperation. When we started changing that, things really started to change in our territory. The minister was quite willing to appoint me on an annual basis to the transboundary panel, which really is one of the decision-making forums to see what the overall fishing program would look like. There has been a lot of effort by the Alaska Department of Fish and Game; they've come to monitor and observe the dynamics of this working group that Richard oversees.

    I really see an excitement amongst professional people and bureaucratic people alike. It's almost as though there's a gleam of hope here, and they see the harmony happening. When they reach a milestone I would even say there's a bit of a celebration together, with all differences set aside, in seeing hope for the future.

    The object in the end is to try to produce more salmon for everybody, and we really think this is the model we'd like to share with the rest of British Columbia. It's very strategic and it's very mindful of one another's philosophies and ideals on salmon management.

    So I am just hopeful that this committee would be able to support these recommendations in a political way, or however else we may be able to get support for this ongoing harmony. I can't see harmony lasting forever in our traditional territory unless there is support for it. That's why we call it here, “Harmony on the Waters”. It's a success story, and I am hoping that it's viewed by the honourable people here that way, and that it can continue to have success with some good support.

    With that, I would like to say gunalchish, thank you.

    The Chair: Thank you very much for your presentation, gentlemen. There are so many areas of our country where there is conflict, or where there is disagreement, or where there is disharmony, if I can put it that way, that it's always nice to see a ray of hope--some harmony, as you put it. I think it's important to see a synergy or merger between fisheries science and traditional knowledge.

    From many of our trips we've seen that sometimes traditional knowledge, regardless of whether it's from aboriginal peoples or fishermen who have been fishing for hundreds of years, appears to be ignored or downplayed. That's a real shame, we think, because there can be a lot of information in traditional knowledge. I think our committee generally supports an integrated approach between science and traditional knowledge, so it's good to see that there is a model of that working.

    Those are just my own personal editorial comments, but that's what I take out of this--a ray of hope, a nice example.

    The usual procedure, as I said to you earlier, is that we ask our committee members if they have any questions. If they do, then we'd be pleased if you would answer them.

    I'll be mindful of the clock so that you can get over to the Senate fisheries committee at the appropriate time, but I think we have enough time to deal with whatever we need to deal with.

    I'll start with Mr. Burton.

    Mr. Andy Burton (Skeena, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I just want to welcome here these three gentlemen from Atlin. It is part of my riding, and one of the most beautiful areas in British Columbia, if not Canada and the world. It's a really beautiful place, and they're very lucky they have an opportunity to live and work there. It's one of my favourite spots, and I get up there whenever I can. I will be up there in July, and I look forward to that.

    So I certainly want to welcome you all here, gentlemen. We met in my office the other day, but I welcome you once again, John, Richard, and Peter.

    I have a lot of questions, and I have been trying to get them into some semblance of order. I think I will just ask them, and if they fit together, then so be it, but if they don't...I'll ask them anyway.

    I am really interested in your comments about creating a model that others could use and the difficulties we have in terms of getting the powers that be--namely, DFO, which controls a lot of these issues, such as fisheries management and so on--to buy into that. Maybe you could expand a little bit on your relationship with DFO. As well, because it's a transboundary issue, you have to deal with the Alaskan people. So you have allocation issues--who gets what, and at what time, and so on. There are a number of issues like that due to the location.

    So I would like you to expand on your relationship with DFO and the Alaskan people in terms of how you actually manage the fishery.

¼  (1810)  

    Mr. John D. Ward: Mr. Chair, I'll make some comments and then ask Richard to weigh in on this, if that's all right.

    Through the AFS, we naturally have synergy of some sort going. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans fund Taku River Tlingits for the aboriginal fishing strategy program.

    It's true that we sort of started developing this relationship, and one of the things that really helped us was building our capacity and hiring Mr. Richard Erhardt, a registered biologist. We could see the comfort level developing on the side of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and they began to take us much more seriously on how we'd like to see things done.

    Richard was very instrumental--we certainly value him very much--in being able to interpret the lingo, if you will, from my people to people who work with science a lot. That was really the starting point of bridging a stronger relationship with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regionally.

    In another area, the minister has appointed me to the transboundary panel, and the same faces basically show up at these meetings. We have to be on the same page in that particular place, because we at times have to negotiate with the Alaska state people who sit at this particular transboundary table as well. Now, we don't change anything in the treaty, but we negotiate, deliberate, and try to come to some agreement on allocations for that particular year--the specific species, opening dates, who can fish where and when, and all those kinds of things.

    It was through those deliberations that I was able to get to know some of the people on the Alaska state side as well. They have always had this open-door, open-arm approach. We can go down and visit them any time and talk about other fish-related things.

    Part of the structure in this transboundary panel is a technical committee. Richard represents us there and gets to know the DFO technical people who are at work there. And he gets to know not only the DFO technical people but also the Alaska state side.

    Eventually, those relationships led up to our working together on this harmony on the waters plan.

    Mr. Andy Burton: What volume of fish is available in terms of the various groups that have access? I assume the Alaskan commercial fishing fleet has access, but what other groups? Are there other native groups on the river, or is it just the Taku Tlingit that have AFS on the Taku River? Are there other groups with access?

¼  (1815)  

    Mr. John D. Ward: No, there are no other first nations in our traditional territory.

    Mr. Andy Burton: And not on the Alaska side?

    Mr. John D. Ward: Not on the Alaska side. They have a settled claim on the American side.

    Mr. Andy Burton: Do they have access to any of the stock? Is it part of their claim?

    Mr. John D. Ward: Well, through their ADFG fishery regime, yes, just like everybody else.

    Mr. Andy Burton: Okay.

    You mentioned that through the AFS you're getting some level of funding. Can you expand a little bit on what you've actually accessed now and what you possibly are going to need in the future? I assume one of the reasons you are here is to try to give us a heads-up on future requirements, and I'm sure you're looking for support for that. So could you expand on that a bit, what you have now and what you're going to need?

    Mr. John D. Ward: I'll ask Richard Erhardt to tackle that one, if you don't mind.

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    On the current AFS program for the Taku River Tlingit, since 1992 there's been a base level of funding of $375,000. Now, this program is very much meshed, as we mentioned, with DFO and Alaska Fish and Game in the sense that we have joint projects, or projects that all connect together, in terms of the overall transboundary program. So that funding is largely committed to the needs of the basic stock assessment programs.

    We've diversified a bit and moved a little bit into habitat and so on, but for the most part those are regular transboundary programs that we participate in for the Taku. The costs are quite high just because of the limited access to the different watersheds and so on.

    Just to give you an idea of this process, in the past two years we've accessed an additional $80,000 that again was proposal-driven through the aboriginal fisheries strategy. Then there were some nominal amounts through our regular AFS program that we converted--my own wages and so on. We also had a habitat steward through the conservational stewardship program at DFO. That helped us very much in terms of getting all this homework done.

    Mr. Andy Burton: I guess my question then is, what do you see as being future needs? Obviously you don't just do all this work and then drop it. It has to continue. Do you see similar requirements into the future, or an expanded program? At some point at time, where does the commercial side of things kick in?

    Just getting back to volume, I think you told me in the office the other day that all five species of salmon are in the area. What kind of volume are we talking about? When all this work is done in terms of the management aspects and determining how it's better managed, where does the commercial aspect fit in?

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: In terms of the funding needs, we're almost done the plan. The idea is that the body of the work has been done already by incorporating the process into the management regime. The regular technical staff and so on who meet regularly as part of the transboundary meeting perhaps would spend an afternoon out of three days as this watershed planning committee or working group. So there are very cost-effective ways to continue this.

    There are certain projects that flow out of here, and there would be some funding needs there. But the other thing is that this plan, because it's totally developed by different agencies and first nations, is a very good platform for accessing funding from other areas as well, which we would look forward to doing. It makes a very good platform.

    Mr. Andy Burton: Time for another one, Mr. Chair?

    The Chair: No, but just to follow up, I want to be clear I understand this.

    Are you getting $375,000 annually under the AFS? Is that what you're saying?

¼  (1820)  

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: That's correct.

    The Chair: All right. And in response to Mr. Burton's question, will you continue to want $375,000 annually, or will you be looking for more or less?

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: I guess there are always more things we could do, but we're planning that this would continue as base funding--realistically.

    The Chair: If you're continuing to hope to get $375,000 annually, what impact on that $375,000 would you expect your commercial operations to have? Or would you expect any impact?

    Isn't this what you were getting at, Andy?

    Mr. Andy Burton: Sort of. Somewhere down the road I'm hoping it's going to create employment and expanded opportunities--for instance, we talked about adding value to these fish and so on.

    I'm guess I'm just not--

    The Chair: You're selling these things at $18 a pop. Hopefully you'll have lots of markets for them. You're going to have a processing plant there, hopefully, rather than in Juneau. You're going to be making some money, recovering your costs. Will that affect your thinking about the $375,000 annually?

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: These are two separate things in the sense that this money is all committed to fisheries management. Taku Wild is a separate organization with separate funding. The link is that the product we're selling and the people buying it, the target market, are people with environmental ethics who want to buy a sustainable product. This process ensures that.

    The Chair: I understand that, but the profit, assuming there is any, will stay within the Taku nation, will it not? Is that the plan?

    Mr. Peter Kirby: That's the plan. I think the question you're asking on the cashflow from two different funding opportunities is difficult to answer in terms of picking a number to say it's this much or that much.

    At the end of the day, the marketplace will determine Taku Wild's contribution. We have a number of marketing plans under way, and we're learning from a model in existence now, from the Copper River in Alaska.

    There's actually a contest right now--it's been going on for a number of years--to get the first Copper River salmon to the dock in Seattle. They fly a helicopter in, fly that fish to the closest major airport, get it on a jet, and take it to Seattle.

    During the course of the fishing operations from the Copper River, people will pay $17 a pound for the same fish that, caught in another place, sells for $2 a pound.

    So this is contingent on how well we do in comparison with the model. We're trying to develop new products, new SKUs, for the marketplace, and to expand once we establish the branding for our Taku Wild name.

    The Chair: I understand that, and good luck, but what I'm trying to get at is that assuming you build that commercial name, and assuming there's a good profit and everything else, did I understand you correctly to say that Taku Wild would contribute some of that back to this wildlife management process and the costs involved, thereby presumably reducing the amount required from the government? Or are we talking about two entirely separate things and never the twain shall meet?

    Where is your plan headed? I guess that's what I'm getting at. Are you always going to be looking for the $375,000 annually from AFS, or will there be some reduction in that as--and if--Taku Wild makes it commercially? Or has any thought been given to that?

    Mr. Peter Kirby: I think there's no question, at least in my own mind, that should Taku Wild be able to attain prices like the Copper River salmon, and the profits generated can pay the $375,000 a year or $500,000 a year or whatever that number might be, then Taku Wild is going to do that. There's absolutely no question about that.

    The Chair: Well, that's the answer to the question. Thank you very much.

    I'm sorry, colleagues.

    Monsieur Roy, cinq minutes.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia—Matane, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The questions I was intending to ask have already been put.

    I would, however, like some information by way of clarification. If I understand correctly, this was a pilot project. When was it initiated and how long will it go on?

    Basically, you're asking us to extend the pilot project and at the same time, to continue developing a co-management initiative.

    I have another question for you. What is the population of the nation you represent and what aims is it pursuing? How many fishers are involved? Would the income to be derived be sufficient to provide them with an adequate standard of living? Are most of the members of your nation currently taking part in the pilot project? Are they interested in the outcome? Will only a minority of members be affected, or does the nation as a whole stand to benefit?

¼  (1825)  

[English]

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: I think I can answer some of that. Thank you for your question.

    The pilot projects did start two years ago. We're almost finished with the base plan, so most of that work is done.

    The way the framework is designed is that further work in terms of incorporating this process into the co-management regime wouldn't require a lot of funding. A lot can be done just within the regular scheme of things. It's just looking at this as a blueprint that we can build upon in terms of management in the future.

    The first nation members, and the community in general, were engaged throughout this process in that whenever we had workshop meetings of the working group, of the technical folks, we also had community meetings in the evening to show what we were doing and to show them how their interests were being displayed in the priorities we were selecting and so on. So I think there has been a real level of comfort generally in the community toward making this project happen.

    Currently on the Canadian side of the Taku River there are 16 commercial licences, eight of which are held by the Taku River Tlingit and eight by the commercial fishermen. I think for quite a few of these fishers it's a very important income for them. Right now economic development in the area is slow. There are many opportunities, given the pristine nature of the area, but some of the fishers really depend on this as their main work.

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: What is the total membership of your nation?

[English]

    Mr. Peter Kirby: The Taku River Tlingit First Nation has around 400 members.

    Your other question was, is that enough income for the fishers? Absolutely. A number of fishers have been going down there from the time they were four or five years old. Even today, one of the fishers, who has his daughters taking over now, has photos of his daughters in a little fish tote on the river. The Taku Wild project will help to pay a greater price for them so that it is more meaningful financially for them as well.

    I think you also asked, are all affected and will all benefit? I can answer, to both of those questions, absolutely yes.

    There is a book my grandmother co-authored with a fellow by the name of Jeff Leer from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, and it has a number of photos in it. One of them is a picture of my grandmother, as a child of about 12 years old, on the ice floe crossing the Taku River. Each family will have a similar recollection of a connection to the river. So anything that happens on the river, on the Taku, directly affects all of us, and is very dear to all of our hearts.

¼  (1830)  

[Translation]

    Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I have one last question for you. What type of fishing are you involved in? You mentioned commercial fishing. You mentioned the eight licenses issued to your nation, as well as eight other licenses which, I would imagine, have been issued to non-natives. Why type of fishing do you do and what kind of gear and boats do you use? I'm not at all familiar with your region.

[English]

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: It's largely a drift gillnet fishery, so it's mostly small riverboats. Normally the fishery is open two to three days throughout the week, and the fish for the most part either have to be flown out to Atlin, to the Canadian side, and in some cases they may go to Juneau and so on. They can also use fish wheels, although it doesn't happen very often. We use them quite a bit in management. But for the most part, it's a drift gillnet fishery.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Provenzano.

    Mr. Carmen Provenzano (Sault Ste. Marie, Lib.): Gunalchish for your presentation.

    A voice: Hey, all right!

    A voice: Not bad for an Italian.

    Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Harmony on the waters implies harmony on the grounds in that area. It's hard to imagine there are very many places left on the planet that are as profoundly beautiful as what is being shown. So I think I can speak for my colleagues when I say you have a very receptive audience when you talk about implementing strategies that preserve such a place.

    But as I say, harmony on the waters implies harmony in other areas. After sitting on the Standing Committee for Natural Resources and on this committee for the better part of six years, and going across the country, I don't know how you can talk about managing any specific resource in isolation from managing the whole ecosystem. We used to talk about practices for good forest management, but when you get down to it, you have to manage the whole ecosystem in order to be able to manage the forest well.

    So in terms of the recommendations you're talking about, it seems to me what you're really saying is we really have a wonderful ecosystem there that needs to be managed in its entirety. That has implications, because it requires buy-in. The harmony you're talking about is going to require balanced approaches.

    I wonder, sitting where I do, what the competing interests are. Are there competing interests in forestry, in the potential extraction of ore bodies? Are there those kinds of competing interests? If we're going to achieve the balance, who are the players? What is the buy-in?

    I read with interest and listened with interest to the fact that, under the strategies with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, you've forged a very meaningful partnership. This is what you seem to be saying. But do we need more? Are there other players who should be required to buy in here?

    I'm repeating myself, but are there competing interests we should know about so that we can look at how that balance might be achieved?

    Mr. John D. Ward: If I may, Mr. Chair, I will try to take a stab at it, and maybe my friends could weigh in on it as well.

    Thank you for that question and that insight. The holistic view is something the elders have always tried to push and make us learn. It is not enough just to learn what you learn in school. What we do here affects over there and all of that.

    It did take some time for them to get it through our thick skulls. When we finally caught that vision and understood all of it, the next step was other governments, industry, and so on. It is a very difficult concept sometimes to try to impart and to have some agreements on.

    There are competing interests in our traditional territory with this salmon resource. Who are they, you ask? Well, there's an old mine site a company has been trying to reopen. They want to build a road to this particular area. It's been difficult to sort all of that out. We have had many talks.

    Our elders and much of our community...and I'm not going to lie, we have our differences in our community. We have different views and so on. But to arrive at a decision we have in place a system, which is in within our clan system and our constitution, that gives a fair chance to everyone to say their piece.

    At the end of the day, we decided that we want to have a higher responsibility, or a higher responsible approach to development, in our traditional territory. Our people charged their leaders with the responsibility of getting on with things like harmony on the waters as a prelude, or a precursor, to having industrial development in our territory.

    After all, sit back and look at our home; one of the biggest drawing cards for me to want to go home is the beauty of our land. I can share with other neighbouring first nations the types of traditional food and so on that we eat, but the big thing is, it just changes me to be at home. As Mr. Burton put it, there is no place up and down the coast as beautiful as that. I think of it as a very young bride; it needs to have respect and caring, and raping and pillaging is not on for us.

    As I said in my earlier presentation, it's important that we know what's there, how it works, and what its needs are to continue that way. We'll never, ever know the cost of making as serious a cut as building a road in a territory like that without doing it properly, because if we're going to do anything, we want our eyes wide open as we enter through the threshold of development.

    We know we can develop as well other kinds of economies that are longer term and sustainable. Taku Wild is one of those pictures.

    I just want to also weigh in a little bit on another benefit, which perhaps I can throw in, Mr. Chair. The Pacific Salmon Treaty was completed in 1997. We need a new treaty between the U.S. and Canadian governments. If we are successful in moving this ahead--and it's an ongoing, living plan and document--it could be very beneficial to successfully negotiating a better treaty on Canada's side, particularly on this river. We get only 18% of the total allowable catch. That's what is agreed to. The United States gets to walk home with 82% of all the runs of the salmon.

¼  (1835)  

    Because of our efforts, in cooperation with the regional DFO, I believe we have a better chance of increasing those runs, speaking for the salmon, and having a better argument for our negotiators when they sit down and renegotiate a new treaty.

    I hope that answers your question.

¼  (1840)  

    Mr. Carmen Provenzano: I just want to know if anything immediately comes to your mind in terms of programs or actions by government agencies, groups, or significant individuals who might be counterproductive or antagonistic to your aims and the objectives you've told us about tonight.

    Does anything come to mind where we have sort of a group that's antagonistic to that, or doing things that are counterproductive? If there isn't, that's great, but I'm just saying that I, as one committee member, would be interested to know and to identify where these counterproductive or antagonistic actions might be coming from--or whether it's just smooth sailing.

    The Chair: I guess what he's asking is, any chance that the bride is going to be raped?

    Mr. John D. Ward: Why, certainly. Yes, there are people who want access to this territory. In the minds of my people, they're not willing to reach the standard, the bar that's set for...and actually that was agreed upon in a previous....

    I really kind of resent going down this path, but I will go there for the sake of this question. We're here to present a success story on fish. We're hopeful to have your support for that. But on this note, yes, there are, there are threats there, and it's very difficult to try to get them to change.

    My people are saying we all have to change or we're all going to be out in the street in a short time.

    A voice: Hear, hear!

    Mr. John Ward: Sure the Taku River Tlingit have had to make some sacrifices. I've had these bouts, these ups and downs, with some of my own members who are really pro-developers. I raised my own family off of industry--building roads, underground mines, logging, and everything--but I agree with the need for change. I agree with my people. We need to change this. We need to look at things holistically. We need to look down the road a little further. We need to think about future generations a little bit more. Let's pace this out. There's no hurry.

    Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Thank you, Mr. Ward.

    Mr. John D. Ward: Does that help you?

    Mr. Carmen Provenzano: Yes.

    The Chair: Mr. Hearn.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC): Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I'd like to apologize for being late. I got tied up in the House a bit longer than I thought I would be.

    Mr. Ward, if you had a fair amount of money to invest in salmon, or perhaps in any other species you might be interested in, do you think we'd get better value from investing in our wild stocks, enhancing our environment, protecting our environment, than we would from investing in aquaculture and ignoring the wild environment? Where would you rather put your money?

    I ask this because I really think it's a question that as governments we'll have to ask, which direction we go in. There may be room for both, but do we ignore one at the expense of the other, particularly the one that has kept us going for centuries?

    Mr. John D. Ward: Thank you for that question. I think it's a really good one.

    For us, I think it's hands down: we want to invest in what's natural, in what our creator has given us. We need to give the fish a chance, I think, and not try to grow some out of some strange areas. Our elders really take issue with these kinds of scientific approaches, with imitation food and so on. They say we're going to be accountable for this; we're going to have stand before somebody some day. Whether we're working with nature or destroying it, some day, as individuals and as a nation of people, we are going to have to cough up and give an account for that.

    Our elders have seen the changes in our traditional territory. Our elders talk about walking across the backs of salmon across these creeks, and it's very difficult to see that any more.

    As Peter said, we're 400-strong right now. But you know, my elder, Uncle Jack, who was raised by his grandfather right on the river and moved, at a later age, to Atlin, said to me, “Johnny, you just think of Taku River Tlingits as who we are today, but a long time ago there were 3,000 in one community.” So what did they eat? How did they survive? And there were many communities throughout the whole watershed.

    He said in one community, called Taku, up in the Inklin and Nahlin Islet area, there were 10,000-strong in this one village. Salmon...and I just think, “My God, what happened?”

¼  (1845)  

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: I can certainly appreciate what you say. I come from Newfoundland, and even I can remember standing on the rocks, watching the capelin come to the shore to spawn and seeing the codfish chase them right into the harbours. I fished all my younger days, and used cod traps. The minute you would start, as we used to say, drawing up a cod trap, you could again walk between the boats, the fish would be that plentiful.

    Our biomass now is less than 3% of what it was 20 years ago, and many communities are destroyed because of it. Again, it's just exploiting nature.

    I'll just throw two questions together because of the timeframe.

    Could you take us roughly through the various steps, from catching the salmon to packaging it on the market to the final retailer selling it to me as a customer?

    As well, you mentioned that right now you have to get your salmon to Juneau, flying it in to get a good, fresh product, and undoubtedly that adds to the expense. What benefit would it be for you generally, and certainly for bringing down your costs, to be able to do your own processing in your area? Of course, you would also have the extra jobs, I would think, in relation to that.

    The Chair: Mr. Kirby.

    Mr. Peter Kirby: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

    Thank you for the question. I also thank you for the talk about your own situation on the east coast.

    The best way I can summarize the story, from catching the salmon to getting it into the marketplace, is to say that the fishers cast their nets and catch the fish; they take that fish and head and gut it; and they put it into a small fish tote that they have filled with ice from a local glacier. When they get as much as their boat can carry, they'll take that on a three-hour boat ride to Juneau, to a processing facility there, where a fellow by the name of Dick Hand, who's had a relationship with those fishers for 15 years, processes it. He puts it through a high-heat process that allows us to market it with a shelf life of seven years.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: Seven years?

    Mr. Peter Kirby: Seven years. But our experience has been that not many keep it much longer than seven minutes.

    Voices: Oh, oh!

    A voice: It's that good.

    Mr. Peter Kirby: It gets packaged...either for U.S. packaging. It gets packaged right there in Juneau, because these days, with the current state of affairs, it's difficult to get things over the boundary in a package. So it goes direct from Juneau to points in the U.S.

    We bring that same retort gold-foil package that isn't U.S.-bound into Canada and into Atlin, where we provide jobs for people to take one of these gold-foil packages and package it with this little insert, which has a reorder form on the back and a little story about the fishery, the people, and the Taku River basin. It goes in with the gold-foil package.

    Then it gets packaged into 8-, 12-, or 24-unit packages, depending on where it's headed for in the marketplace. The larger distributors like it in the larger package, of course, and the smaller retailers like it in the smaller package.

    So that's how it gets to the marketplace. There's a bunch of background work on the marketing side that goes into getting it into those places, but that's it.

    On the benefits of processing in Atlin, of course when we take jobs out of the country it's not a good thing for us in Atlin and it's not a good thing for Canada, either. So there would be some revenues generated for all of us, I guess, and there'd be jobs in Atlin.

    How it affects the end market price or profit, of course, is dependent on the relative value of the Canadian and U.S. dollars. We use 70¢ as a number, and our cost-benefit analysis shows that the end price in Atlin and in the U.S. would be very similar, except that all the revenues generated and the earnings would be by Canadians, in Canada.

¼  (1850)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Hearn.

    We have about three and a half minutes before our guests have to leave--assuming they leave immediately at five minutes to seven--so our last questioner will be Mr. Stoffer.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

    It's neat when you hear that they use ice from a glacier. That's kind of cool.

    I also got a kick out of his saying, “There's no place like home.” I almost thought of The Wizard of Oz when he said that; I could see Dorothy on her bed saying that.

    I think the three of you gentlemen, and Dave behind us, should be congratulated. I had the opportunity to go up there, Mr. Chairman--I used to live up there in the Yukon--and I think Mr. Burton is correct; it is one of the most beautiful places in the world, and it would be incumbent on us to really look at what they have done and brought us, and reflect on the recommendations.

    I'm glad you brought out the fact that there are dark clouds ahead, but I think this is something really unique in that it is a very good news story. How often have you heard about aboriginal communities, non-aboriginal communities, and DFO working together with Americans? That's just unheard of. It's fascinating. I mean, it's really something. That is fabulous. I think whatever it takes, we should monitor this.

    I have a few questions. First of all, what is the role of DIAND, the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs, in this process? What is the role of the provinces, British Columbia and possibly the Yukon Territory? As well, are you receiving any funds at all? When the Pacific Salmon Treaty was signed, I think the amount of $300 million to $400 million was supposed to be put in the trust fund. That was to be distributed five ways, among Oregon, Washington, Alaska, the aboriginal tribes of the United States, and British Columbia. That was to be for salmon habitat restoration and so on. Are you receiving any funds from those?

    And what would you like this committee to do for you, in the end?

    The Chair: Those are all excellent questions. Perhaps I can ask you to repeat them one by one.

    The first question is....

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: What is the role of DIAND?

    The Chair: Is there a role for DIAND?

    Mr. John D. Ward: I feel good about saying this: They don't have much of a role in this particular thing. It's just TRT and aboriginal fishing strategies.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

    What's the role of the B.C. government?

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: Before we started the process, we invited the provincial fisheries to participate, both the policy people in Victoria and the regional fisheries technical people for the Skeena region. They didn't participate in the meetings. At the time they were going through some political restructuring. Their response to us generally was that they didn't seem sure how to respond to this type of issue, or not at that time. There was also, I guess, limited staffing capacity for them to participate.

¼  (1855)  

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

    Did you receive any funds from the Pacific Salmon Treaty agreement?

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: No, we did not. In terms of the status of that fund, it is established as a transboundary fund. My understanding is that the fund was set up to work off of the interest from that money, and apparently there hasn't been enough interest generated.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: Right.

    As a last question, what would you like this committee to do, in the end?

    As well, for the record, we have your names but could you state what it is you do, your titles?

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: I am a fisheries biologist, a consultant who works with the Taku River Tlingit First Nation, and I'm also manager of the watershed planning process.

    The Chair: And what is it you want our committee to do?

    Mr. Richard Erhardt: We would just ask that you review those recommendations. In light of this...and the body of the work has been done for the Taku region. Certainly there are many projects to move forward on, but incorporating it into the management regime isn't just about funding, and that's not why we're here. There isn't a direct connection of this process to our current fisheries management regime. It's basically still a guidebook that was put out.

    We've already been seeing the benefits from this. We haven't even put the plan out in final paper yet, and yet in our regular meetings with the other agencies we're starting to talk about specific stocks. We're starting to talk about wild chum salmon and habitat modelling.

    So if we had some political support, I guess, to try to engage this into the regular management regime, I think we could facilitate that.

    Mr. Loyola Hearn: I think it should be noted, Mr. Chairman, that in their answers it was quite clear that the less government involvement, and the further away you are from Ottawa, the better things work.

    Mr. Peter Stoffer: By the way, Mr. Chair, if I may say, he said it can last seven years, but when I was on the airplane coming back, it lasted five minutes. We ate it on the aircraft.

    I had also just wanted them to state who they are and what their roles are.

    The Chair: Okay.

    Mr. Kirby, perhaps you can put your name and title on the record again.

    Mr. Peter Kirby: Certainly.

    My name is Peter Kirby, and I am the chief executive officer of Taku Wild Products Ltd.

    Mr. John D. Ward: My name is John D. Ward, and I am currently a spokesperson for the Taku River Tlingit First Nation.

    The Chair: Let me make my little limited effort and say gunalchish. Thank you for your very effective presentation. We certainly appreciate it.

    I also thank the members for coming out this evening and hearing this.

    Your recommendations are clear. We'll talk amongst ourselves and decide what we're going to do, but we certainly thank you for bringing this success story to our attention. In the business of fisheries and oceans, we don't often hear of success stories, so thank you so much.

    Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

    The Chair: The meeting is adjourned.