FOPO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES PÊCHES ET DES OCÉANS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Monday, November 19, 2001

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins (Delta—South Richmond, Canadian Alliance)): I will now call to order this meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

My name is John Cummins. I'm a member of Parliament from this area, Delta—South Richmond. I'm the vice-chairman of the committee, and I will be chairing these hearings today in the place of Wayne Easter, the member from Malpeque, who can't be with us.

The topic of discussion today is the management of the Fraser River fishery in 2001. Today's hearings are not intended to be the definitive look at the management of the fisheries, but merely to give the committee some idea of what went on.

There is a fixed list of witnesses. If this list is not to your satisfaction, I personally will take the blame for that. But we do have limited time. We will be sitting until eight o'clock, and if there is time then, we will take witnesses from the audience.

With that out of the way, members of the committee, welcome to the riding. We're delighted that everyone could be here today.

The first witness today is Mr. Phil Eidsvik, from the B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition. Mr. Eidsvik, the floor is yours.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik (Spokesperson, B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome, committee members, to British Columbia and a rainy day in Steveston. We're glad you could make the trip.

The events in the fishery in British Columbia this year have been very serious, and we're pleased that you're taking the time to hear from the fishing community about the impact we've had in our fishery from DFO's management during the last ten years.

• 1419

I note that Ms. Tremblay is here—welcome. To you I should apologize for doing our presentation this weekend and not having it translated. We've appreciated Mr. Yvan Bernier coming to B.C. on many occasions and have enjoyed his participation on the committee, and we welcome you specifically here.

If you don't have any objections, can I hand this out? Thank you.

Needless to say, I won't be reading this whole document, but it should assist in keeping track of where I am in our presentation.

The British Columbia Fisheries Survival Coalition was formed in January 1993, primarily to deal with aboriginal fishing issues in British Columbia and to preserve public access to the fisheries resource for commercial and recreational purposes, while at the same time respecting aboriginal rights that existed and do exist today. We incorporated in 1993, and a significant part of our budget is spent on litigation. We've had about seven trips to the Supreme Court of Canada since we were formed in 1993.

In aboriginal fishing law in British Columbia, this association and our predecessor that we absorbed have been involved in every major aboriginal rights fishing case to come out of British Columbia, including Guerin, Sparrow, Vanderpeet, Gladstone, Delgamuukw, and the list goes on.

Our reason for appearing today is—and I wish there were better circumstances—that the Fraser salmon fishery used to provide about 80% of B.C.'s $200-million salmon fishery, and sockeye provided about 60% of that; this year, the total sockeye catch in the Fraser River is 246,000 salmon, about $2.5 million. We've gone from $200 million to $2.5 million in ten years.

With our presentation, I'm going to try to lay out the broad reasons why we're in this particular situation. Some of the specific impacts on fishermen and on various gear types will be filled in by the people and the associations that present after me.

The overall effect, of course, when you take $200 million out of the economy, is that thousands of jobs are gone. Livelihoods that supported families and paid mortgages are gone. It's our belief that we can bring that back, but it's entirely dependent on fixing DFO's management.

There are three issues that I'll couch it in—the first, the results of the fleet reduction program and the promises made under that.

Secondly, we'll take a quick look at 2001 Fraser sockeye catches. Sockeye salmon is the main economic driver of the commercial fishery in B.C. There are other species, but generally most dollars today are produced through sockeye. Regarding the troll sector, Mike Griswold, who will be up later on, will talk about their specific interests in chinook and coho.

A third item we want to talk about is FOC double standards. DFO's new name, FOC, has been well accepted on the docks for a number of reasons, but it's confusing, so we prefer still to say DFO so that everybody knows what we're talking about.

The first item is the fleet reduction plan. In 1996, DFO initiated a two-part program to shrink the public commercial fishery. They split the coast into three areas for gillnetters, a couple more areas for trollers, and two areas for seiners. The result of this is, if you were a gillnetter, where you could fish the whole coast with one licence prior to that, now you needed three licences. A licence at that time, after the first buyback, was going for between $75,000 and $125,000, so you had a significant capital investment to get back and remain in the fishery.

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The fleet reduction was controversial. I think there was a lot of protest going on. Certainly if you looked across the community, into any fishing coffee shop on the coast, some guys would be in favour of fleet reduction, and some people were opposed to it. As an association, we stayed out of it, because it would have split our association in half. Some of our members supported it, and some didn't.

The main opponents to it said “Look, we'll go through all the fleet reduction, we'll do everything DFO wants, but we're still not going to get the fish”. The supporters said “Well, look, let's get a smaller fleet, and it will be easier to get in the fisheries, it will be easier for DFO to open it because there'll be fewer boats, so why wouldn't we fish more?” Those were the parameters of the discussion on it.

You'll see on page 7 in our submission one of the promises made:

Licence retirement will significantly improve the financial viability of those who remain in the commercial fishery....

the commercial sector is expected to be substantially better off....

The remaining commercial fleet will be the primary beneficiary of these increased harvest levels.

In 1995 there were 535 seine boats on the coast. These are big vessels, with typically a crew of five persons and an average value of about $1 million each, so they need a significant amount of fish every year to support that. These were viable boats prior to what happened here in 1992. People were making good livings off them. But in 2001, on the Fraser River, what's called the southern area, we were down to 167 seiners from a potential fleet of 535. So you can see the size and magnitude of the drop—roughly 80%.

Another fleet reduction promise, a DFO promise:

Fishermen throughout the coast will now have a better chance of making a sustainable living from this smaller, stronger fleet.

If you look at the gillnet fleet, in 1995, 839 gillnetters were eligible to fish Fraser sockeye. Plus, at that time, there were combination vessels, trollers and gillnetters, and depending what fish were around and where the opening was, a guy would put on his troll gear or gillnet gear. The combination boats were killed in 1996. You either had to be a troller or a gillnetter. You had to make your decision.

The result is that, in 2001, only 407 gillnetters were eligible to fish in the lower Fraser River, and a total of about 657 gillnetters available to fish on Fraser River stocks. This compares to almost 3,000 prior. So we're down about 80% in capacity in the gillnet fleet.

On the Fraser itself, in an average opening prior to 1996, you'd have about 1,000, 1,200, or 1,500 gillnetters. As we mentioned, in 2001 we're down to 407, so on the Fraser, roughly one third of the fleet is left.

Despite being so small and having only a few boats, in 1999 and 2001, the Fraser River never opened to sockeye; 1999 was the first time in Canadian history that the commercial fleet in the Fraser River never fished sockeye, and of course, the second time was this year, 2001. That's twice in 100 years, both in the last five years.

Another fleet reduction promise:

We are working to achieve a future in which the fishery provides good incomes for fishermen, and contributes to local economies.

That was a promise from David Anderson in 1998.

The last fleet is of course the troll fleet, and they're down also about 85% from 1995. There are only about 390 trollers left to fish the Fraser River sockeye stocks, compared to up to 3,000 prior to 1995.

Another promise by David Anderson:

The fishery is not a sunset industry. It is an industry with a future.

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These were the promises made to the commercial fishing fleet in British Columbia when we cannibalized our fleet and sent a lot of guys who weren't ready to retire off to look for new jobs. But FOC, or DFO, promised that we would have a future in this industry. DFO claimed that given the huge declines, fishery planning would be simple. The risk of opening a fishery, because there are so few boats.... As you say, you had 1,000 boats fishing on a small run, and you'd say we can't open it. But now in areas we have only 200 or 300 boats. So these small runs that were supposed to be available to us should have been opened, but as we'll see later on, that hasn't happened.

In 2001 we had, conservatively, 6.5 million sockeye come back to the Fraser River. The total public commercial harvest was 256,000 pieces.

So after the industry's tumultuous and terrible time, the fleet reduction, and the fights between friends who had been friends for a hundred years over whether this was a good thing or not, you have to think, given DFO's actions, that they're engaged in a deliberate plan to destroy and decimate the commercial fishery in B.C.

For somebody in an association in B.C. to come before this committee and say that, you'd think the guy was a little bit nuts. Mr. Wappel, I see you shaking your head, and I agree. As you'll see, by the time we get through our submission and the submissions of the other people, you might be shaking your head in agreement, instead of disbelief. It's a sad situation.

So if you turn to the first graph on page 17, you can see the lighter-shaded graph is what came back as a total run size. We just picked a few years that had low run sizes on Fraser sockeye over the past 20 years. The dark-shaded bar indicates how many fish were taken in those low years. Of course, in 2001, we have a large run by low-year standards, and virtually no fishing.

We ask why that would happen. You can see in these low years—this is a follow-on from the graph on the previous page—it simply says we've successfully fished those years and we've enjoyed a big return. The dark-shaded areas show the return in the next cycle. So in our fishery four years previous, this is how many fish returned.

Page 19 just explains that in some years you could put 10 million in the spawning grounds and you might get a return of 20 million. Other years you could put two million in the spawning grounds, and you might get a return of 30 million. There's really no firm number for sockeye production. It doesn't seem to really make a lot of difference how many fish you put in the spawning grounds, except to say at the low end, say low numbers of sockeye, you're going to have low production, and at the high end, you're also going to have low production. If you put too many fish on the spawning grounds, you'll also have low production.

So the Fraser River managers have to maintain a balance; you don't want to go too many, you don't want to go too few. You can see the types of numbers we have. For example, in 1993, for every spawner you had roughly three fish return. In 1989, for every spawner, you had eight fish return. Yet in 1996 we had only two. So there's no hard and fast rule there.

What we do see on page 20, if you look from 1961—

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Those graphs are rather significant. I'd just say to committee members that when we're going through the material like this, if you have a question, I'm sure Mr. Eidsvik wouldn't mind if you interrupted. So if you do have any questions on that, we'd be happy to take them.

A voice: Mr. Chairman, do you mean questions on the graphs?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Well, I think at this point they're significant. If it would help your understanding of these graphs and the terminology used, please don't hesitate to interrupt. If not, maybe we'll just keep the questions to the end. But certainly, for the graphs...because they are so stark.

Mr. Eidsvik.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: On page 20, the 2001 sockeye escapement is an interesting graph. You can see, if you look at 1961 and 1965, 1965 was basically the low year for sockeye on this particular cycle, and every four years, of course. For those members who aren't aware, sockeye spawn in year one and hang around in the lakes, go down the river, head out into the mid-Pacific Ocean, and then return in year four. That's why you see a four-year gap on all of these.

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But you can see in 1965 we began a long, exhaustive rebuilding process. Throughout these years of low escapement we had a commercial fishery in B.C. with this huge number of boats that we had prior to the buyback in 1996. Every one of those years we fished. Every one of those years guys made boat payments, made mortgage payments, put food on their table, bought clothes, took their kids to Harry Potter movies—those types of activities. We had a viable fishing community in B.C.

Of course, if you look at escapement in 2001, you have to wonder, if we fished in 1965, 1973, and 1981, why were we tied to the dock in 2001?

In a reminder from the existing minister, when he was talking about fleet reduction, he said it would provide more opportunities for those fishermen who remained in the industry. That's the promise that has been made again, and again, and again to the fishing industry over the last four or five years.

So let's see how this turned out in reality. Let's see if the promises DFO made were fulfilled by giving us more fishing time. What we've done is taken a snapshot of the year 2001, but 2001 is not an anomaly in what's happened from 1996 to 1992.

The graph on page 22 looks at seine-boat days. Area 20 is in an area out in the Juan de Fuca Strait, where fish come in through southern banks on the west coast of Vancouver Island and sneak in through Juan de Fuca Strait, sometimes on both sides of the American and Canadian border.

The light-shaded bar is the total run size in 1987. You can see it was about 7.7 million. This year we had a run of about 6.4 million. The final numbers aren't in yet. Most of us are thinking it will be between 7 million and 8 million.

You can see we had roughly 1,200 seine-boat days in area 20 in 1987, on a run size slightly larger than we had this year. You can see this year we had 40 seine-boat days. That's it. Forty seine-boat days in a year that 10 or 13 years ago would have had 1,200.

If we look at the gillnet boat day comparison in the Fraser River, you can see area 29, which refers specifically to the area E fishery. The area E association will be appearing before you later today.

In terms of the run size, these boat days are tens of boat days. So when you look at the graph, it's not 1,000; it's actually 10,000. In 1987 we had 10,000 gill-net boat days in the Fraser River on a 7.7 million run. This year we had 6.4 million, and we had zero boat days; not a net was put in the water.

So somehow we had 10,000 boat days in 1987 on a run that was slightly larger, and this year we spent tied to the dock. Our guys got zero income. Nada. Nothing.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Why are you speaking about 1987?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Because it was the year that had the closest run size. I just wanted to pick a year that had similar run sizes, to make it a valid comparison.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Is that the same as on page 22?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: That's correct. It's actually the same year. I think you could go back to any of these years and pick out that sort of difference.

So you can see that the promises the minister made about fleet reduction simply haven't been fulfilled. I think if Brian Tobin were here, or Fred Mifflin, David Anderson, Herb Dhaliwal—any of those ministers who made these promises—they'd be appalled. What's happened here basically is that the bureaucrats have made liars out of the ministers.

The minister made commitments in good faith. The bureaucrats in British Columbia simply haven't delivered. I think if Mr. Dhaliwal had had the time and attention to give to the situation, I'd like to think, and the people in B.C. would like to think, our fishery wouldn't have been destroyed this year and we wouldn't be in the state we're in.

You'll hear more on the problems of management inside the department from other presenters.

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The next issue—and it's been an ongoing sore in the industry since 1992—is the policy implemented by the Conservatives, by John Crosbie, in 1992, that created a separate commercial fishery for very select aboriginal groups in B.C.

On the Fraser River the Musqueam Band, the Tsawwassen Band, and the Stó:lo Band are allowed to sell their food fish. Of the 30,000 natives on the Fraser River, they total about 6,500 people. If you're a native from upriver and you fish with the Musqueam you'll be arrested and jailed. If you're a native from Campbell River who has a big investment in the commercial fishing industry and you come and fish in this fishery, you'll be arrested and jailed.

You could fish in that fishery with the same gear, same type of boat, at the same time, but you'll be arrested and jailed. I myself have been jailed, and as some of you are probably aware, Mr. Cummins was jailed for it. There are currently more than 300 fishery charges against fishermen who said they're not going to live with aparthied in their fishing industry and have protested by participating in that fishery. And there are many court cases now proceeding through the system.

We know that the federal committee on scrutiny of regulations looked at the regulations that set up this particular fishery. They have called this fishery and the regulations an abuse of the Fisheries Act, yet ten years after it is still ongoing. And as an industry we've spent about $400,000 on legal fees donated by fishermen, individual fishermen, who you can see haven't fished, to pay the bills to fight this policy. It has driven a wedge through our industry. It has divided families who used to get along.

I don't know if you know this, but in the fishing industry in B.C. 30% of the participants in the fishery are aboriginal people, and they have a big investment in the industry. As of 1989 they had about $300 million invested. The second most successful seine-boat fisherman on the B.C. coast is an aboriginal chief from Port Hardy, James Walkus; he's a very successful fisherman. And they're as unhappy with this as we are.

Hutch Hunt, who I went with to a meeting with Mr. Anderson when he was minister to complain about this policy, said “In 1990 I built a $1.5 million seine boat, I listened to your promises on the buyback and I bought another licence, and now I'm tied to the dock as you transfer the fish into the river for the Musqueam, Stó:lo, and Tsawwassen”. He said “You're telling me that I'm a second-class citizen, that there's no place for me in my fishery”. Sadly, Mr. Hunt sold out, and now there are five families in Alert Bay who used to have a job every year and those five families now have no income. It's a tragedy that we've come down to this state in British Columbia.

You'll see through the presentations that go on this afternoon that there was intense monitoring of the public, commercial, and recreational fishery this year, extremely intense, but in the aboriginal fishery it was virtually non-existent. And you'll see that the public commercial fishery was prohibited from fishing what were called late-run sockeye, which was a stock of concern this year and affected our fishing plan, yet the aboriginal fleet hammered on them, and again with the effect that we're left tied to the dock. Again, it's part of the stuff that we can't believe a responsible management would be doing to us.

I'll give you a couple of examples of the double standard. DFO authorized six seine vessels to harvest sockeye in the mouth of the Fraser. They got to harvest for 30 days. Their target catch was 80,000 pieces and they fished at the mouth of the Fraser River and in San Juan virtually every day during that period. They unloaded at French Creek Seafood on Vancouver Island and at other sites. Although we had people sitting at French Creek going out and doing their fishing activities, and fully loaded seiners came in there virtually every day, not a fishery officer was in sight. Nobody counted the fish. Nobody knows how much was caught. They self-reported how much they caught.

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Sockeye are money. It's roughly $10 a fish in rough numbers in an average year. It's like opening the door on a bank and saying “Phil, you go in the bank, take as much money as you want. Sorry, no, you're only allowed to take $10,000, but nobody's going to count it. Nobody's going to check on you. Just stop when you have your $10,000. Don't worry, nobody's going to count.” Of course, human beings being what we are, we're going to take more. And I'm not being critical specifically of the aboriginal fleet, because I know guys, my best friends.... For instance, my partner in my boat—I know that if DFO weren't out there patrolling the line and patrolling the closure, he'd be fishing too. So that's the problem there.

So in that particular fishery, the seine fishery on the Fraser, we ended up with 4.5 times the boat days that we had for the whole public commercial fleet in area 20. Although the area E gillnet fleet was prohibited from fishing to protect just 300 late-run sockeye, this particular fleet fished in the mouth of the Fraser 30 days in the nursery area for those runs. Did they catch more than 300? Certainly.

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An hon. member: What is brailing?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Prior to the selected fishing policy implemented by Minister Anderson, you could set your net and if there weren't a lot of fish in it, you could simply haul it over the stern. It was very fast and efficient. A brail is about 36 inches in diameter. You dip it down into the net in the water, dump the fish on the boat, and then sort it.

The seine-boat representative behind me will give you more details if you want. My seine experience is pretty limited.

I'm on page 28 of our presentation. Are we moving along quickly enough, Mr. Chairman?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Yes. Just keep it up, please.

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Mr. Phil Eidsvik: These are fisheries where supposedly if the commercial fleet for some reason can't take fish in a given area and they get upstream into an area where the commercial fleet can't go, DFO will award an aboriginal group the right to harvest those fish and sell them. We've always said those should be for public tender.

It's easy to create an ESSR fishery by simply shutting down the outside fleet. That's what has happened again and again on the coast. Again, Tobin promised that would never happen. We were shut off late-run sockeye, yet we had 2,000 Weaver Creek sockeye harvested, which we were specifically prohibited from fishing this year. We have an ESSR fishery going on in Saanich Inlet as we speak, yet our guys are prohibited from going in there. This fishery is going on in an area where our boats could easily fish, but we were totally prohibited from going there. I understand that you guys will be heading to Prince Rupert in the next couple of days. More than 500,000 sockeye pass up the Skeena River. The seine fleet and the gillnet fleet could have taken them, but they were passed to an ESSR fishery.

What we're often seeing with the product coming out of ESSR fisheries is that it's of a lower quality. It has basically destroyed the reputation of Canadian salmon in British markets. We're having to spend significant amounts of money to get our name back that Canada is a provider of top quality salmon.

I'm not going to go through all the details on page 33, except to say that there's a double standard in how the pilot sales program fishery, the Musqueam and Tsawwassen and Sto:lo Band, the only commercial fishery, operates.

In our public fishery, we have the privilege through meetings like this to bring the managers of that fishery before Parliament. You can haul the director general of the Pacific region before you and ask him to answer questions about how he manages the fishery, and we hope you will. You can't do that with any of these other fisheries because they have no responsibility to the government. Although they're managing the public resource, it a private operation. The general Pacific fishery regulations apply to our fishery, but simply through the negotiation of what's called an AFS agreement, they can bypass all the rules and regulations that have been set up to properly manage fisheries in B.C. over the last hundred years.

You'll see some scribbled notes on page 34. That's basically because I didn't read my presentation and caught some mistakes today.

In the MTB fishery, their managers, who are Joe Becker, Mike Baird, and Sam Douglas, are convicted poachers, yet they're still managing the fishery. Native guardians in charge of that fishery are convicted poachers and are still managing the fishery. As recently as 1999, the very good enforcement team for Fisheries and Oceans, working in concert with somebody who used to be an aboriginal guardian, busted Mike Baird, who was trying to ship truckloads of fish across the U.S. border. This is the second time Mike has been busted. Steveston's enforcement people still have to meet with him to discuss an enforcement plan for their fishery, despite the fact he's a convicted poacher. It's that kind of insanity that's going on in our fishery, and we can't figure out where it's coming from.

Every fishery officer has to sign a whole bunch of documents, sworn affidavits, saying they have no financial interest in the fishery, yet these guys are allowed to enforce their own fishery and catch and fish and take money out of it at the same time. It's a conflict of interest that should never have been allowed. Peter Pearse pointed it out in his report in 1992 and John Fraser pointed it out in his report in 1994, and here we are, guys, seven years later with the same problems.

Their fishery is wide open to anybody. You can be from Australia or Timbuktu and you can fish in that fishery. You don't even have to be a Canadian citizen.

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All the things I have cited here were submitted in our recent court case. They were all tested. The judge heard it all, and it's part of the case he will be ruling on. So we have full confidence in everything we have said here.

There is no restriction on the number of licences or on vessel size. Our licence costs $100,000. They get theirs for free. We pay a licence fee of $890 annually. They get theirs for free. We have to take an observer upon request. They don't.

I'm going to skip over the rest.

There's a trite rule in fisheries that the best-managed fisheries transfer the economic benefits of their conservation efforts to the worst-managed fisheries. We saw that here with public fleet protection on the late run. It was harvested by the aboriginal fishery. The upper Thompson coho is protected by the same fleet in area 20. That again was harvested by the aboriginal fishery. The result is that the Musqueam and Tsawwassen and Sto:lo Band caught more sockeye this year than the entire commercial fleet in British Columbia. They caught more Fraser sockeye. It's a tragedy.

We really hope this committee can take DFO to task, because DFO has been saying for a decade, “Don't worry, guys. We've made some mistakes this year, but we're going to do better next year.” I expect the members of this committee who are from the east are quite familiar with this, because they've heard these same kinds of things from their own fishermen. But it has been going on here for ten years. Our industry is through if we don't get it fixed, but the DFO officials who did this still have their jobs.

We'll move quickly to the recommendations on page 43.

The first thing we would like this committee to do is to protect the public right to fish. This has its origins in the Magna Carta. It prevents government from using the fish stock in the same way as advertising contracts, road-building contracts, and appointments to the Senate can be treated by some governments. It means that DFO has to treat all Canadians equally in the fishery, so that you have equal opportunity to get a licence. We have to get back to one commercial fishery for all Canadians. The idea that the workplace should be separated by race in 2001 is as foul an idea as anyone can imagine.

There are big problems in the lack of expertise in our senior DFO people. Given the conflict and the terrible things that have gone on inside the department, a lot of the really good people in DFO in B.C. have left. I do not overestimate DFO's abilities prior to 1992. If you were to look anywhere in B.C., you'd see that they had the best salmon managers in the world. We were proud of them, and I think the rebuilding of the runs proves it.

The other recommendations are important. They are there if you need them.

If there are any questions, I'd be happy to answer them.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Mr. Eidsvik.

We'll move quickly to the questions. We're committed in a sense to protocol as far as the questioning goes. I know that the members from British Columbia are aware of a lot of these problems. Unless there is something significant they want to raise, perhaps we could go to Mr. Wappel.

Are you ready? Do you have a question?

Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): I could start, if you want.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): If you would like to, please.

Mr. Tom Wappel: All right, if that's okay with the members of the committee.

I'm not from the east. I'm sort of from the middle. So all I know about sockeye is that I like to eat it.

On page 16 you say that the number of Fraser sockeye in 2001 was 6.4 million. To me that's a meaningless statement. Is that every single fish that's alive?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: That's the total run size. We won't have the hard numbers on that until the spring, because they recalculate numbers. But it was roughly 6.4 million.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Does the run size mean fishable fish? Is that what you are talking about?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: No. It means the total run size. Out of that you take the escapement and some for the Americans and the aboriginal food fishery, and any surplus is for the recreational and commercial fleets.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Out of that 6.4 million, how many could have been fished commercially?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: If you look at previous years, you would see that normally we take about two million to three million. That would leave three million on the ground, which would be an excellent escapement. To take three million wouldn't have been the least bit unusual.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So in fact 10% of that was taken, which would be 256,000. Is that right?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Roughly. That's about correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Can you tell us what the rationale of DFO is for that?

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Mr. Phil Eidsvik: We've had a very difficult time trying to understand this rationale. It simply cannot be explained. And if you go back to all the previous years, you will see we had a viable fishery taking that three million up until 2001.

I can't explain it, Mr. Wappel. I'm sorry.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Have they not given you a reason? Is this your evidence, that a reason hasn't been given, or a reason you can't understand has been given?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: We have some people who will follow me who are experts in this area, and I think they can give you a better answer than I can, because they're directly familiar and involved with the management of the fishery with DFO. I think they can give you a good answer.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Is it then your testimony that you don't know what the reason is, or you don't agree with the reason they give you?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: If you look at DFO's reasons, they seem to change from day to day. I'm sorry, I just can't give you a proper analysis of what their reasons are because they're all over the place.

Mr. Tom Wappel: All right. Thank you.

Now, out of this 6.4 million sockeye, how many were taken by aboriginal fishers?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Roughly 1.5 million.

Mr. Tom Wappel: And it's your evidence that this was completely unmonitored by DFO.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Most of it, yes, 99% of it.

Mr. Tom Wappel: All right.

You must have had conversations. I mean, two of the fisheries ministers are from here, or have been, Anderson and Dhaliwal. They're from the west coast. And Mr. Tobin is from the east coast. You must have had conversations with them. What did they say?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Generally, the fishermen here got along better with the managers from the east coast because they understood something about fish. Mr. Dhaliwal, prior to entering politics, operated a fleet of limousines and a very successful janitorial cleaning company, whereas Mr. Tobin and Mr. Mifflin lived in fishing communities and were surrounded by it all their lives. Mr. Dhaliwal's expertise on fisheries is a little bit embarrassing. We haven't had long conversations with him about this, but the ones we had were unsatisfactory. But I know he's got the brains to understand this and to fix it—if he had, perhaps, the time.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I get the sense you're trying to be diplomatic, but it doesn't require a great deal of intelligence to see that the numbers are different. I'm just wondering if you've had discussions as to why that's the case. Does the minister, or any minister, agree that there's no monitoring of the aboriginal fishery? Let's begin with that.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Typically, the ministers will say that all is well, everything's fully monitored, no cheating. In fact, we had DFO bureaucrats this year saying how wonderful it was, despite the fact that a BC TV camera crew went up to the Katzie Reserve, based on a phone call, and bought fish illegally off an aboriginal person there and put it on the evening news at six o'clock. At the same time, on the same clip, they had the DFO guy denying that illegal sales ever went on.

I guess the best source of information on this is to read the memos of the various fishery officers who have reported on this problem year after year. It is a significant, huge problem.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Do you know what happened to that person who denied that there was an illegal fishery at the same time as there was an illegal fishery?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: He is still collecting a paycheque, and our fishermen, of course, have no money this year.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Do you know who that person is?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: His name is Mr. Paul Ryall. He's the area manager for the Fraser River and I would love for this committee to take him to account for the comments this year.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Has he been promoted?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: No, but Pat Chamut has been promoted. He was in charge of the fishery in 1992 and 1994. Paul Sprout has been promoted. Donna Petrachenko, who ran this fishery as RDG in the last five years, was promoted to assistant deputy minister. Some of the very good people in DFO, unfortunately, have been pushed aside.

We're not against all bureaucrats. There are some great bureaucrats in the department, but I guess they are the nail that keeps getting hammered down by the system.

Mr. Tom Wappel: All right.

I've been around long enough to know that there are usually more than two sides to a story. You make some pretty bald statements here, so I just want to ask you about “Absolutely no DFO monitoring or enforcement of the aboriginal seine fishery”, page 26.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Absolutely none. Zero. Nada. Not one.

Mr. Tom Wappel: And would they agree with you?

• 1509

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Yes. Senior bureaucrats might not, but the people who are on the water and the ground certainly will.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Well, if a senior bureaucrat doesn't agree, they must not agree on the basis of something.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: You're assuming the senior bureaucrats we deal with are principled, ethical, and honest individuals. That's an assumption we're not prepared to make.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I'd need pretty hard evidence to come to the contrary conclusion. You said there was no counting of catch, but self-reporting only. Would the senior managers agree with you?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I think if you had been at French Creek Seafood and watched the fish pump sit in the hold of that boat, unload it, put it in totes and then run those totes off up and down Vancouver Island, with nobody anywhere from the department, I think a senior bureaucrat would have a hard time disagreeing with it. But I expect they probably will deny there's a problem.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Okay. And just to conclude, the theory was that fewer boats would mean more fish for fewer fishermen.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: That's correct.

Mr. Tom Wappel: That's the general idea.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: That's the general principle.

Mr. Tom Wappel: And your evidence is that's not occurring.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Well, we've got 470 boats. On the Fraser River they had zero fish this year—zero.

Mr. Tom Wappel: But the aboriginal fishery continued?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Yes, the aboriginal fishery continued.

Mr. Tom Wappel: And you're saying it was for than just self-sustenance.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Yes. Certainly there's the pilot sales project. They actually had a commercial sales fishery on the river where they caught 269,000 sockeye and sold them. We're allowed to by the department. We on the river caught zero.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I'm sorry, I said that's my last question, but my last question is, on that graph where you had zero.... Where is it here?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: It's page 23.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Page 23 shows you had zero catch. What is the rationale for that?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I hope you ask the department, because we are pissed off about it.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Okay, I'm asking you: did they give you a rationale? Did they give the industry a rationale? Zero is pretty drastic.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Zero is pretty drastic.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Usually that's because “Gee, there's no fish. We've got to protect the fish. Something's wrong.” Zero is pretty drastic, so there must have been some explanation. People can't just go around doing what they feel like doing.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Mr. Wappel, if you had sat in the shoes of the fishermen here, you would see that they have gone around and done what they've wanted to without any regard for any reason—just pure, absolute madness here for the last ten years. It is beyond your comprehension as a member of Parliament to understand that the department can operate like this. I guarantee you that if you were out here and had seen, you would be shaking your head and asking why and where an idea like this comes from.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So you've been given no explanation for a zero catch, as per page 23—is that your evidence?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I didn't say that. I said the reasons are varied, depending on who is speaking, and I today don't understand the reasons, so I don't want to say them, because I'm confused about it. They change from day to day. Perhaps there are some people behind me who have better explanations.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much for those perceptive questions, Mr. Wappel.

Madame Tremblay.

Just for the benefit of members at the back, the committee operates bilingually, and we will hear some questions in French. Thank you.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay (Rimouski-Neigette-et-la Mitis, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Frankly, I have to say that I tried to listen very carefully to what was being said but I would like you to tell me clearly, in words that I will be able to understand, exactly what the problem is. Are you saying that the DFO did not allow you to fish even though there were fish that the aboriginals are catching? What exactly is the problem? Explain it to me in simple words.

[English]

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Why didn't DFO let us fish this year? To put it in simple terms—and again I'm trying to answer Mr. Wappel's question—there was a variety of excuses that don't seem to make a lot of sense and possibly some reasons behind it. This kind of madness I can't explain. Maybe you can get it from the department. Not to let us fish this year was absolutely insane. For me to come up with a legitimate reason—I can't do it. You're asking me to defend DFO's actions, and DFO was insane. How do you explain the actions of an insane person? That's why I can't give you a clear action on this. Perhaps when you haul the department before your committee they might be able to explain their insanity, but Madame Tremblay, I wish I could.

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[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: You have fewer fishing boats. Boats have licences. When were the licences withdrawn? When did you learn that you would not have the right to fish this year?

[English]

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: The pre-season predictions for the run this year were significant. We figured we had a big run coming, and after three or four years of very poor fishing we thought this would be the year we'd finally make a loan payment we'd delayed, maybe catch up on our boat repairs, and maybe have a little bit of money to go home to the family with. We figured we would fish, up until about the beginning of August—our fishery normally starts here about the first week of August—and then suddenly DFO said “No, you're not going to fish”, and it hung on. On Tuesday they'd say, “Don't worry, you're going to fish on Wednesday.” On Wednesday they'd say, “Don't worry, you're going to fish on Thursday”, and it went on like that every day for the whole summer—for the whole month of August.

There was actually a point when DFO said they guaranteed we'd get to fish on Tuesday, and we all ran out to the river in our boats. We had packers running up the river to deliver ice to our boats so we could load fish the next day. In our processing plants we had workers being called in to go to work at eight o'clock the next morning to process the fish, and all of a sudden DFO cancelled the fishery. This is the process we went through this year, and it is beyond belief.

The patience with which the fleet has dealt with this... On the east coast, right now half the fisheries offices in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick would probably be burnt down; they simply wouldn't put up with what we put up with here.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Fish travel. Could there have been something in the DFO's decision that was linked to the United States, pressures that came from the United States?

[English]

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: The Americans actually are as alarmed at DFO as we are right now, because we have a long-term treaty with them. They get a percentage of the catch every year—of the surplus fish—and we get a percentage. We have a joint federal American and Canadian body that runs it, to make sure each country gets its share. As far as pressure is concerned, there has been no pressure from the Americans other than asking DFO, “Why aren't we fishing?” If there are only 100 fish to be caught, and they get 18% of that, they only get 18 fish. We get the rest. If there are 10,000 to catch, they get 1,800. So they're in the same boat we are.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: If there has been a significant and meaningful run, what would be the impact of the fact that you have been forbidden to fish this year?

[English]

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Prior to 1992 the fishery on the Fraser River produced about $150 million a year. This year it produced $1.5 million, about 1% of the value, and I'm saying that's an average number. You could say, if you thought of it in terms of pulp mills, the payroll of three pulp mills is what we've lost this year, if it was an average year. This year, because the run size was lower, of course that number is lower. I think later on you'll see some individual fishermen come up to tell you what the personal impact on them was.

Thank you, Madame Tremblay.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner (Bras d'Or—Cape Breton, Lib.): Thanks very much.

• 1519

I'm looking at your presentation and wondering where the missing pieces of the puzzle are as well. Certainly we on the east coast have gone through some tumultuous years with the cod stocks and what have you. I think we did get buy-in from our fishing community, because the science was so obvious. What you're showing us here is that the biomass looks to be in good shape and the stocks seem to be relatively healthy, but there's no correlation with the decisions that are being made. So it is different from what we've gone through on the east coast.

I have two questions, if I might. For the first one, if you're comfortable answering it, great; if not, maybe one of the next presenters might.

Could you put a dollar figure on the impact this has had on the secondary industries—on the value-added sector, the processors? This is to answer if you're comfortable; if not, I'll get it later.

• 1524

The other question is on the position you're in now. I guess, after Marshall, it is a different situation here. After Marshall on the east coast, we're making some strides. Some native bands have some very workable agreements in place. They're not complete yet, but I think there's a respect for conservation. There is some progress, and I think our non-native fishing community realizes that as well.

From what you're telling me, with no monitoring or anything, it's like leaving Charles Manson in charge of the steak knives. If somebody has a vested interest in gaining a reward from harvesting stocks, and they're the management team that is somewhat responsible, I have a great deal of concern about that situation. Has your organization challenged that in the courts as well? If so, where does it stand?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I'll deal with the issue of the value-added impact. Unfortunately, in the presentation today there is one piece of the puzzle missing, and that's the impact on the processing sector. I can very quickly give two brief points about it.

Because we expected a fairly good run this year, the processing sector spent a lot of money in Japan, well in advance of the season, to build markets there. We'd been out of it for several years. This year they promised fish again, but had to phone the Japanese customers in the middle of August and say “Sorry guys, we lied; there's no fish coming.” The Japanese response was “You've promised fish for two years out of the last three years. You didn't deliver either year. Don't ever phone us again. We're going to buy our fish from Alaska; we're going to go somewhere else.”

• 1529

I hope this committee has the input of the processing sector on this at some point down the road.

Generally, looking at rough numbers, if I get paid $10 for a fish, the wholesale value of that fish is roughly $20. It is important to mention that virtually all the earnings from salmon come from our international markets. The fishery in B.C. earns, in a normal year, about $1 billion, and about $800 million of that are export earnings. So these are dollars that other countries are paying into Canada.

On the Marshall decision, we know there are problems in implementation on the east coast, but the model you used there is one we began here in 1968. We said, to increase aboriginal participation in the fishery, let's have the government buy boats and licences in B.C. and transfer them to aboriginal interests for use in one fishery, with one set of rules. It was very successful.

In 1992 we broke away from that model and created the separate fishery, with separate days and separate rules. That festering sore in our industry is going on today. Some bureaucrats on the east coast said that was a pretty good model, but I know it was refused on the east coast, for good reason. Fishermen there simply would not accept it.

You can increase aboriginal participation and do it in an honourable, fair, and just way for everybody, by having everyone fish under the same rules.

Does that answer your question?

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: Are you currently involved in a challenge with the current situation with the...?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: We would love to challenge the enforcement part of it, but it's very difficult and very expensive.

To put a human face on it, the fishery officers have a very good fishery office here in Steveston, with about nine guys working. They have to cover an area that goes way the heck up the coast. They cover a big chunk of the lower mainland. They cover the biggest fishery in British Columbia, in terms of people. They do so on a $1 million budget. The Musqueam-Tsawwassen are given $407,000 to manage their little tiny fishery. You know, DFO only has so much money.

The way things are today, we'd like to fire every bureaucrat in Ottawa, and for every one we fire we'd like to hire another fishery officer here in B.C. I think this is a popular complaint—the lack of fishery officers and the lack of enforcement. It's something we think DFO would still do well, if it were properly funded and they had the support of their seniors.

I can't say enough good.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Mr Peschisolido, please.

Mr. Joe Peschisolido (Richmond, Canadian Alliance): I'd like to thank Mr. Eidsvik for his wonderful presentation.

Along with Mr. Wappel and Mr. Cuzner, the rationale of not allowing fishing to go on just boggles my mind.

Could this be a political decision? You've been very diplomatic. You haven't gone the next step. Could it be that the rationale or the intent of these goings on is to discourage commercial fisheries to a certain point, where you'll only have aboriginal activity on the Fraser?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: That is certainly a fear of the industry. If you look at an area this year, such as on the Fraser, where the aboriginal community fished commercially and we didn't, one would have to say “What is the underlying motive here?”

You have to think that in 2001 a government would not show such blatant disrespect for the values of Canadian society; that there would be equal treatment in commercial activities, fair treatment and just treatment. But it certainly looks to us like we're being kicked in the teeth and told to go take a hike, and the fish are being reallocated. If you look at the catch data for the past 10 years, you'll see the aboriginal catch data has skyrocketed. There's an inverse relationship: they're going up; we're going down.

Mr. Joe Peschisolido: But it is your believe that if the department follows your recommendations, you can have one fishery that would be able to accommodate all on the river?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: If you look back, until 1992 this was a viable commercial fishery. From year to year we had build-up the run. If you go back, from 1961 to 1992 we only missed an increase in our net escapement five times in 30 years. That showed a commitment by the fleet to make a living. Since 1992, we've missed our escapement goals at least half the time. There's great uncertainty in the fishery.

• 1534

Mr. Joe Peschisolido: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Stoffer, Richmond's favourite son, the representative from Halifax, member of Parliament.

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

I just want to say to everyone here how great it is to be back home. For those who don't know, my mom lives about a half a block from here, and this is where I grew up, fishing for jacks at Steveston just off the dunes not very far from here. We used to go for lunch at the Buccaneer Hotel and help the fishermen unload their boats for fish for the night. It's good to be back.

I've got to say, sir, in the four years that I've been on this committee, this is probably one of the strongest, most damning pieces of evidence we've heard from any witness toward the department. You say here very clearly on page 15 that it is engaged in a deliberate attempt to destroy B.C.'s public commercial and recreational fishery. Then you go on to say, on page 28, “bureaucrats making liars of the Minister”.

I'm not here to defend the bureaucracy in any way, shape, or form, because we've been fighting this for a long time ourselves, on the east coast and in central Canada, but tomorrow we're going to meet Dr. John Davis, who you know. We're going to ask him point blank: “Sir, in 2001 the run was similar to that of 1987, and not one boat was allowed to fish. What was the reason?” What do you think he's going to tell us?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: What I think he'll tell you is that....

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay, that's fine.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I'm sorry.

A voice: I hope you note that long pause.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Eidsvik, I'm in agreement with Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I think if you ask anybody but him, nobody could explain it.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I will.

Mr. Eidsvik, I'm in agreement with Mr. Wappel. We've had closures on various fisheries on the east coast for a long time. Every single time those closure announcements are done in writing. They have a document that says you cannot fish because of this particular reason.

Is there any written documentation to you, or to the fleet, or to the seiners, or to the gillnetters as to why they were not allowed to fish? You said in your testimony that you were told by DFO, yes, tomorrow you might be going fishing, or maybe next week, or maybe tomorrow. You even said you were guaranteed by some DFO guys, guaranteed that you'd be fishing. Is any of that in writing?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Yes, there's a fairly extensive written record kept through the Fraser panel. I think people on the Fraser panel—this is a joint U.S.-Canadian body that operates the fishery—are going to have some information for you on this.

I could sit before this committee and repeat some of the reasons DFO has given us.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: No.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: DFO will say we couldn't fish because of the late runs. Yet at the same time they had an aboriginal seine fishery and a pilot sales fishery hammering away on the late run. It's insanity.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I understand that. But if I'm a fisherman here at Steveston and I've got a licence, I'm a seiner and I've paid a lot of money for my licence and I want to go fishing, then DFO says I can't go fishing, do they tell me verbally, or do they tell me in writing?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Generally, there's simply a regulatory notice sent out that the fishery will not open. You phone up this special phone number or look on the website and it says the fishery is still closed, phone back on Monday. If the fishery is still closed on Monday, you phone back on Wednesday.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, for the record, would it be possible to get copies of those documents for future reference?

If we're shutting down a season to fishermen, an entire season, there has to be a reason why. There has to be documented evidence as to why. If I'm going to shut down somebody's industry, I'm going to tell them why in writing, whether it's for conservation, or we gave the fish away to someone else, or for a myriad of reasons. I'd put it in writing. I can only assume that DFO would do that.

I'm going to ask Mr. Davis that tomorrow, and hopefully he'll give us an answer. But the gentlemen who paid for their licences, the fishermen, did they get a refund on their licence if they didn't fish?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: No, there's been no refund given, no offer of compensation, no apologies, no thanks.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: How much does the licence cost a gillnetter for the season?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: It depends on—

The Vice-Chairman (Mr. John Cummins): About $800.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Is it $800?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Yes, $800.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: And what is it for a seiner?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: For a seiner, I think it is about $4,000, perhaps $3,800.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: And you buy that licence on a yearly basis, is that right?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: You have a renewal fee, but your big investment is the actual licence itself.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Absolutely.

• 1539

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: My licence, which I am struggling to pay for, cost me $125,000.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Because when the Mifflin plan came by, you had to stack your licences if you wanted to fish in other areas, right?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I'm afraid I was a fool. I bought my licence in 1997 based on the promises of the minister that we'd have a viable fishery, and I couldn't get enough myself, so I and two other partners scraped up $125,000. Our total income since 1997 from that licence is just over $30,000. And that's in four years of fishing, just over $30,000 on a $125,000 investment.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Sir, you said when the revitalization program was in effect that the group you were with were divided on the fleet reduction plan.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: That's correct.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: But you didn't take a stand, or you didn't get involved more or less?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: No.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The question is why didn't you? You just stood back and watched it happen, obviously, because your group was divided, right?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Yes, because if you take any group of 100 guys and put them in a room on any issue, you're going to have some disagree. Our coalition is the biggest coalition of fishing industry interests, and we keep together by only dealing with one issue. If we had dragged that issue in, half my membership would have wanted to hang me and the other half would have been patting me on the back, and that's no way to keep an association.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: For clarification, are there aboriginal groups or individuals in your coalition?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Certainly, yes. In fact, in the court case we're in with the 160-some accused, a number of them are aboriginals. In court testifying on our behalf were two aboriginals, and one of them said, “I came to the protest because it was supposed to be for natives, and I'm a native. The government keeps saying it's doing things for aboriginal people. I'm an aboriginal person, but when I went there they arrested me.”

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Sir, you say the aboriginal groups up the river like the Musqueam Band and the other groups are catching these fish. Who are they selling it to?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: A chunk of it goes across the border; some of it's sold to processors; some of it's sold in green garbage bags to their neighbours—

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Are they allowed to sell it across the border? Is that legal?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: They're supposed to land it and have it counted in a certain place, but the fish is going all over.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In regard to it crossing the border.... I remember, Mr. Chairman, you had brought this issue up to our committee I think a year or two ago about how they had actually followed a ship and it went....

Is it legal to sell the fish across the border, in your opinion, or would they have a licence for that?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I know that fish is exported across the border, but I'm not sure about the rules and regulations on that. It would have to be something I'm not prepared to give an answer on, because I don't know enough about it.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you, Mr. Stoffer.

Were there any other questions from the committee?

Thank you very much, Mr. Eidsvik. That was certainly an enlightening presentation. And I thank the committee as well for some very perceptive questions.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: I'd like to thank the committee.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): The next witness will be Mike Forrest, from area E as well. Mike was before the committee last spring. The committee will remember him. He spent a good number of years on the international commission.

The floor is yours, Mike.

Mr. Mike Forrest (Individual Presentation): Thank you very much. Thank you all for coming here. You may remember I was there last spring.

For the last 100 years or so, the Fraser River salmon fishery provided a livelihood for hundreds of families like mine along the river. Aboriginal and non-aboriginal fished together without any thought that anyone was entitled to anything except an equal chance to compete in the industry. Somehow, recently our boat is sinking and we are drowning while the government watches with no hand to help us up.

My heritage and livelihood have been wrenched away from me, redistributed to others based on ethnic origin. This is very difficult for me as a fisherman, as a person who grew up on the waterfront. The Fraser River runs in my blood as much as anyone's. I am absolutely outraged with the position I've been put in after being responsible with respect to this fishery all my life.

You've seen my credentials. I was a member of the International Pacific Salmon Fisheries Commission for four years, 1981 to 1985. I was on the Fraser River panel of the Pacific Salmon Commission from 1986 to 1999. I was removed because of my comments regarding aboriginal fisheries and the process that Mr. Anderson was going through.

I've tried to be a responsible part of this industry all my life, from the sixties and Sol Sinclair's report, through Pearse, Tobin, Mifflin, and on and on ad nauseam. No one has a greater sense of loss than me or my family with respect to what's gone on here, the fact that we are not allowed to fish because we're not the government's version of a native.

• 1544

Over 60 years we were able to protect and rebuild Fraser stock, sockeye and others, and a strong viable fishing industry. Fishing management included the skills of being able to balance fishing opportunities with escapement, whereas nowadays unfortunately we're stuck with management through closure as the only method. We had fish go to sea, return, we did the analysis on what we needed for spawning, what we needed for fish for food for aboriginals, what we needed for our American friends, and then we were allowed to schedule the rest for commercial fisheries.

Phil has gone through the process quite dramatically, I would say, and accurately, of giving the history of where we've come in the last ten years or so. We're allowed to fish supposedly on excess to spawning requirements and therefore to fish on the fish that are defined for total allowable catch. And in 2001 we had zero fishery, while others alongside of us fished every weekend, April till August, at least two days a week. And we are told there's a conservation problem and that's the reason why we didn't fish.

The year 2001 was an absolute disaster. There is no way I can explain it to you in any simpler terms. I don't know how I can put you in my shoes, but picture sitting on the dock with your net on the drum, with your boat ready to fish, with a promise that you will be fishing with a licence that is valid, and someone is in front of your dock taking the salmon you're supposed to be able to catch and selling them and you are required to watch. That's what we need to understand where we're coming from.

You people have to try to put yourselves in the shoes of the fishermen here, because that's where we're coming from. There is no way to explain the gut wrench that happens when you have fished, and were brought up fishing all your life, and you watch somebody else, by government decree, fishing and you're tied to the dock, by government decree, and for no reason. There isn't a conservation problem. If someone's fishing, there isn't a conservation issue. Conservation comes first, before food, before allocation to others.

They started the season by signing agreements with aboriginal bands. I'll go back to my statement presented to you last year or early this year. That presentation regarding Adams fish, and early entry Adams, early entry of late-run stock, will present itself in 2002 just as we suggested. It became academic in 2001 because we didn't fish. We weren't allowed to. Others did. Others were allowed to, but we weren't.

It will present itself in 2002. Adams is a dominant run in 2002. If the early entry of Adams fish happens in 2002 and we go through the same lunacy we did in 2001, we will tie up the whole fleet again for fish that are going to die before they spawn. We need to do better than that.

We signed agreements early in the year, actually it was mid-year, with aboriginal communities. Those agreements, you need to understand, have the ability to put aboriginal people in the water in the Fraser River for various food...and transfer back and forth from food and sale and what have you. Under DFO policy, the pilot sales portion, if there was such a thing—and there was this year—is not to have a priority. It is to be distributed, regulated the same way as any other commercial fishery.

It is abhorrent. I do not agree with it, but the reality of DFO policy was that they established pilot sales and they made those pilot sales the same level of priority as the commercial fishery, and yet they deliver the pilot sales fishery before we fish, with different regulations, or no regulation, with lax regulation, without having any interest in having the rest of us fish.

• 1549

They fish first, we fish second—if we fish. In this case, they fished three times this year and we didn't fish at all. No priority?

They're required to have no live boxes to save coho and steelhead. We have to spend hundreds of dollars to have live boxes. We all have them on the boat. They sat there for the whole year, and we didn't use the damn things. Natives fished with inpunity, without any of those rules.

The reclassification of native fisheries this year was a classic. It went from food to sale, to food to sale, to food to sale. If it's food, we in the past have been in favour of the food fishery as a delivery of an aboriginal right under section 35. We're comfortable with that, in fact. But I'll be damned if I'm going to allow that food fish will suddenly become sale fish, and vice versa, just to protect that fishery, and they don't allow us to go fishing. Because if there becomes a pilot sales fishery, it's supposed to be an equitable relationship; therefore, if there's a pilot sales fishery, there will be a commercial fishery.

We had three pilot sales fisheries this year. No, they weren't pilot sales; they were food. Sorry, we misjudged that one, so you didn't have a commercial fishery.

There are a lot of fisheries management issues I could go through with you. I've been through this fisheries management process for a long time. I will leave you with four or five specific points.

You must put an end to the pilot sales program. You must see to it that the government puts an end to the pilot sales program. Do not allocate commercial rights based on ethnic origin. This has gone backwards in Canada. The Canada I stand for does not distribute rights to commercial, or any other fishery, based on ethnic origin. There should be one commercial fishery. Buy the boat. Marshall has been discussed, and various others.... We suggested it long ago: you buy the boats and all the fishermen fish together in the same commercial fishery, not two.

Stop the harvest agreements within the treaty allocations that you're allowing to happen. The federal fisheries have just produced an allocation to the Tsawwassen treaty table locally here just recently from the federal government. There were three parties at the table: federal, provincial, and the aboriginals. The federal government produced an allocation under a harvest agreement, which, if it is replicated for all other treaties within the Fraser River, means there won't be enough fish for the treaties, let alone the rest of the Canadians, let alone me as a commercial fishermen, or the sporties, or anybody else. By the time they get upriver, somebody is going to say to these people, “Sorry, I didn't get my food; I'm going fishing anyway.”

Guess what? You're now going to deplete your resource, because you have allowed too many fish to be signed on the dotted line for allocation and delivery, and the rest of us will be gone.

Pilot sales triggers are dangerous. You need to know what triggers in present-day pilot sales. Presently, pilot sales agreements can be triggered in the Fraser River by a fishery that's 200 miles away. If there's an allocation delivered, a total allowable catch defined, the Fraser River pilot sales fishery can be triggered on fish that have nothing to do with the catch that's 200 miles away; you're fishing on different stocks in the Fraser River at that moment in time. You will end up allowing fisheries on stocks that cannot take the fishery and you will overfish the resource under the present pilot sales program.

You need to separate food and sale fisheries in the Fraser River, on the coast of British Columbia, and probably on the east coast as well.

Last but not least, I want you to give me back my livelihood and my heritage. I want you to be part of what I've been trying to be part of, and a whole bunch of the people sitting behind me have been trying to be part of, for about 30 years: to try to be part of a positive move for sustainability for me and the future economy of this resource.

It's not happening, folks, and we are going down like a ton of bricks. I want you to give me back my heritage. I want you to be part of us helping to go there. Unbelievably, we are part of the people who are buying into this as part of the fishing community that is positive about a future; otherwise, we wouldn't even bother to be here, because we could have sold our licences and given up.

We were told there was a future, and we believe there is one. We need you to help us get there.

Thank you.

• 1555

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Mr. Forrest.

Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney (Nanaimo—Alberni, Canadian Alliance): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We're certainly getting a very clear message from both our presenters here this morning. Mr. Forrest, I was present for your previous presentation, on the Adams River run, in Ottawa. I hardly know what to say, except that it's clear we're not talking about conservation of resources here. If anything, it sounds as if our resources are being threatened even more because of over-regulation on one side and under-regulation on another side. I think we're looking for answers. You're raising questions we don't have answers for here. So I think I would defer at this point. I see some of the other members have questions.

• 1600

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Our order of reference is the Fraser River salmon fishery.

Mr. Mike Forrest: Yes, sir.

Mr. Tom Wappel: And you told us you were on the commission up until 1999, at which time you were removed. On that commission, would you have some expertise on conservation issues?

Mr. Mike Forrest: I would say I did. If you know anything about Jim Woody and the person who directed us in that process, I would say I did, yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So, if you consider yourself.... Mr. Lunney said this doesn't appear to be a conservation issue. I want to make sure we get on the record whether it is or is not a conservation issue. So I'd like you, as someone who has expertise, having sat on the commission you told us about, to tell us—and I'm restricting my question specifically to salmon in the Fraser River—is there a conservation problem with the stocks today?

Mr. Mike Forrest: With some, yes; with some, no.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Can you specify which species are yes and which are no?

Mr. Mike Forrest: Do you mean species, or within a stock? You're getting into technicalities here that are difficult to explain. I'm sorry, but that's where we are.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Well, let me just pick—

Mr. Mike Forrest: If you were to take the sockeye stocks, for instance, there are four general classifications of sockeye stocks in the course of the year. Then there are chinook stocks that run throughout the whole year, and coho in the end, and chums after that.

There are some conservation issues.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Let's pick the sockeye, because the previous witness was talking about 6.4 million Fraser sockeye in 2001. Let's pick that one alone. Is there any conservation problem with that species in the Fraser River in 2001?

Mr. Mike Forrest: No.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Okay. Are there any conservation problems in the Fraser River with any other species this year?

Mr. Mike Forrest: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Which species?

Mr. Mike Forrest: Some stocks of coho. Some stocks—and I have to qualify what I just said about sockeye—in the late-run portion, some small stocks cause some concern, and there are some stocks of early chinook salmon that cause concern.

Mr. Tom Wappel: The reason I'm asking this specifically is—I go back to my previous question—there were 6.4 million sockeye in the Fraser this year. Our previous witness told us normally two to three million would be taken, and there was a total public commercial harvest of only 256,000 in a species about which your evidence is there is no conservation problem.

Mr. Mike Forrest: Correct. On that group of fish we're speaking of there, that's right.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So what's your explanation for such a small take?

Mr. Mike Forrest: Unwillingness by DFO to take risks in management; management through closure; no other method—

Mr. Tom Wappel: Mr. Forrest, why do you call it risk?

• 1604

Mr. Mike Forrest: Because there isn't a method of handling a fishery.... If you put any fishery in the water, there is in the process a certain amount of risk. There isn't a fishery that's not risky.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I know nothing about the fishery, but if I were looking at it, I would say 256,000 out of 6.4 million is on the conservative end of conservative.

Mr. Mike Forrest: That's an understatement.

Mr. Tom Wappel: What rationale would there be for such a small take?

Mr. Mike Forrest: Do you mean in the commercial fishery?

Mr. Tom Wappel: I mean in the sockeye, in the commercial fishery.

Mr. Mike Forrest: In my impression, the whole fishery got reallocated to another user. There was not a willingness to take the risk of our going on the water. If you remember the discussion about Adams River sockeye and the window of opportunity we had for a fishery in early August—regarding a massive amount, over-escapement, of summer-run stock that we knew were there—it was curtailed as a result of conservation concerns defined for late-run stocks, namely Adams, and we weren't allowed to fish.

The lunacy has to do with the fact we weren't allowed to fish and were watching others go fishing. Now, try to explain it. There is no explanation that is rational for that. Others will tell you, from DFO, that it was a strict conservation concern, and you will see in the documents you're speaking of that conservation will be the reason—in somebody's mind—because they have to have a reason, as you stated, but that's what's happening.

Mr. Tom Wappel: But then surely, Mr. Forrest, they will also tell us that those who took did not take for commercial purposes, but for the other purposes.

Mr. Mike Forrest: Food?

Mr. Tom Wappel: Yes. Food and tribal—

Mr. Mike Forrest: The aboriginal community would probably argue that. I would disagree.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Yes. I presume so would DFO.

Mr. Mike Forrest: They probably would. I disagree, because there isn't any enforcement on what they do with the fish. In season, they transferred from food to sales to food to sales—to satisfy their own delivery requirements. We're not part of that management system and don't get to know what they do and why they do it. We just see the results.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Okay, thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Madame Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Forrest, thank you for your presentation. I enjoyed it. I do not have the legal skills of my colleague, Wappel, but I am nonetheless going to play the devil's advocate a little.

You ended your presentation by telling us we should give you back what we took away, that is, your livelihood, your heritage, your birthright. It appears that several people in the room share your cry from the heart, since you earned some applause.

The situation you are facing today - something was taken away, your heritage, your birthright - obviously did not happen overnight. There were negotiations which took place, at the end of which, you were told that your licences would be bought back from you. So, therefore, to my knowledge, no one stole your licence. Negotiations led to the situation in which you find yourself.

How can we give you back something you agreed to give up, something for which you were no doubt compensated? I would like to understand why we got to this point. How much of this had you agreed to willingly? Did you not consider that you were going down a dead-end street by doing so? I would like clarification of this state of affairs so that I can understand exactly what your situation is.

[English]

Mr. Mike Forrest: That's difficult for me, because most of the people I represent, and the people behind me who are in the fishing community, are part of the community expecting to go forward, to be part of the future economic viability promised to us by minister upon minister upon minister. We bought into the plan of fleet reduction, and that was a plan.

There were three items to do with that plan in 1995-96. One of them was partnership; one of them was economic viability; and one of them was conservation—brought on by Minister-of-the-day Tobin and delivered by Minister Mifflin later.

• 1609

I will tell you, from the first day of those negotiations, we were promised we would have access to the resource in the future for economic viability. That was the reason we were enticed to buy licences, to eat the fleet up—reduce the fleet size. We were enticed to do this because there was to be something in the future for us.

I bought into that. I expended almost $400,000 for a new boat buying into that proposition. That boat has fished that many days on sockeye in that many years. It is not economically viable. It doesn't make sense at all. We don't have anybody in the department right now who was part of that structure, who knew about those promises. We lived with it day by day. In terms of the economic viability, we were guaranteed access to the resource, and it's been taken away and given to somebody else.

For them to suggest that the purchase of an $80,000 gillnet licence was compensation for my history, my livelihood, the boat, the net, the shed, and the property is absolutely unconscionable. That's basically what were told at the time—$80,000 folks, and you can have buyout.

The present minister had the audacity to tell someone recently, “You had a chance to get out. What's your problem?” You want to smack the guy. We bought into this with intentions of being here for sustainability in the long term. These people are telling us we could have got out, it's our fault. Sorry.

I have such a hard time listening to that kind of logic. It's very difficult for me.

The numbers are there. The fishery could have happened. In any other year prior to 1992 and the pilot sales program—aboriginal fishing strategy—we would have fished probably six days of sockeye in the Fraser River this year. And this year we fished zero. That's where we're at.

I hope I've answered your question. I'm sorry, I get a little tied up in it. It is very emotional. It isn't something I can explain to you, unless you've been through all of the years I've been through, with all of the ministers I've been through, trying to be a responsible person for the future of this industry, only to find I have it wrenched from me and given to somebody else, and the resource has been put in jeopardy.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: You are telling us to give you back what we took away from you. The original plan had three elements: partnership, economic viability and conservation. That is not working. We should now put everything aside, give you back your licences and increase the fleet. Is that what you want?

[English]

Mr. Mike Forrest: I'm sorry, maybe I didn't make myself clear.

No, I do not want to increase the size of the fleet again. Absolutely not. We are interested in having a smaller fleet. And we were told a smaller fleet would have access to the resource because it was easier, more manageable. And it is. The only problem is, we agreed to the smaller fleet, but DFO has not agreed to allow us to fish in these smaller areas. The fleet needs to be small. There is no question we had too many boats. We agreed with that. There are various arguments. But we bought into that program, reduced the fleet with the promise that we would have access to the resource, and we didn't get access to the resource. We invested heavily based on the future of the promised access to the resource, and we did not get delivery. Instead, those fish that were promised to us got reallocated to a new user group, and that's what's unconscionable about it.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you, Madam Tremblay.

Mr. Cuzner.

• 1614

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: This would probably go back to Phil's presentation, but I'm sure you can answer as well.

The 6.4 million sockeye is a DFO number, is it?

Mr. Mike Forrest: I would think so, yes.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: I would think so. And the 256,000 attributed to the commercial harvest, would that factor in or would that be an approximation of the aboriginal harvest? Would those numbers be in there?

Mr. Mike Forrest: The 250,000?

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: Yes. The total public commercial harvest.

Mr. Mike Forrest: No.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: That's non-native?

Mr. Mike Forrest: That's non-native. It's the rest of the harvest.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: Okay. Do we know the amount of the aboriginal?

Mr. Mike Forrest: I think Phil quoted it would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of 1.5 million, but I don't have it in front of me. Others would be able to tell you that directly, I'm sure, or you can look it up in the information. It's over a million.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: Is the stock in good shape? You said that the stock wasn't in peril.

Mr. Mike Forrest: At six million fish returned? No, it's not in peril.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: Would you say it's in good shape?

Mr. Mike Forrest: Yes. The return of fish that we put on the gravel is over-escapement. We put too many fish up the river in various places—in Horsefly, Chilko, many of those places.

We could have caught those fish, as we talked about doing last year, but we didn't get a chance to go after them, and we have now over-escaped that fish. We've wasted it, because it will stir up the other fish and there will be bad spawning as a result of that. But it's not in jeopardy.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: What should the exploitation percentage be?

Mr. Mike Forrest: The fellow who is coming behind me, Mike Griswold, would probably be able to give you the number, but I would suggest to you it's sustainable at a 60% exploitation rate, and it's different for different stocks.

One thing we didn't get to in this presentation is in one of those documents here—the pink salmon. There were 19 million fish returned to the Fraser River, and no fishery allowed. And we're probably looking at six million total for spawning requirements. Anyway, sorry.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: You were showing us a chart, and I don't think it was included in the charts the previous witness gave us. Could we have a copy of that chart provided to us?

Mr. Mike Forrest: If you're familiar with pink salmon, they come every second year. They don't come every year. This year pink salmon return to the Fraser. It's in the odd years—one, three, five, seven.

You will also hear from others who would have fished pinks by seine, and you should ask questions of those people later regarding the pink fishery that was not allowed.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Stoffer, did you have a question?

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Hearn wanted to go.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Yes, Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC/DR): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all let me apologize. I've picked up an allergy or something that has thrown me right off. It's not salt water—I come from Newfoundland.

Much of what you and the prior witness talked about is not news to us. The fishery is a little bit different. The product is a bit different. The frustrations are much the same. I grew up on the boats in a small fishing community. My family is a fishing family, so much of what you talk about I can identify with, once you change the resource a little bit and some of the terminology.

I have a few basic questions. You've been in the fishery for quite some time, I presume. Over the last 15 years, for instance, how much has the resource changed. Are you seeing a major drop? Is the resource we're talking about today similar to what you would have seen 15 years ago?

Mr. Mike Forrest: No. In the eighties we had quite an increase in general terms, good returns, and enhancement through management in many cases. We stayed on the shore while we watched fish go through for escapement purposes, not for catch. We increased the runs over a period of time quite significantly and we got the returns and results of that during the eighties and into the early nineties.

• 1619

I believe a lot of it has to do with our change in policy regarding the aboriginal fishery, which we didn't have control of then, in 1992. Others will tell you differently—ocean conditions and various other things were why fewer fish arrived back. The reality is that even at the levels we have now—six million returned this year—we could have had a lot more fisheries. We didn't because the department was not willing to allow it to happen.

In general terms, we have a down cycle at this point as well as this ongoing management issue. On treaty issues, I am concerned that we're now dealing with a lot of things that arose in the 1980s with assumptions of 15 or 20 million fish; now we are finding we have returns of less than 10 million. It's still enough to fish on, but if we allocate the treaties based on our assumptions from the 1980s—which is right on the treaty table, and they take that spread of years—we will over-allocate this resource and end up having it decline as a result of our aboriginal allocation.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Both witnesses mentioned they have no problem at all with a basic sustainable food fishery. Why is there a difference once you go beyond this, when we're all Canadians living in a country that spans from coast to coast to coast? If we're all entering the commercial end of the fishery, why should we be treated any differently?

Mr. Mike Forrest: There is absolutely no reason I know of.

The aboriginal food fishery—the food ceremonial issue—is now entrenched in the Constitution in section 35, and we feel very helpless to change it. If the fish were only used for food requirements, nobody would have an argument with it, because the requirement in terms of a number, from from my historic calculations, in delivery to the aboriginal community in the Fraser River would be flooded in 250,000 sockeyes. It would not be two million or one million or things like.... Stó:lo is at the table looking at 1.2 million just for them. It doesn't have those kinds of numbers.

If it were absolute food requirements, there wouldn't be anybody opposed to it. In fact we'd embrace the process. Right now it's getting all juggled together—is it food, or sale, or we don't know—so it's all sold. And there's no enforcement, so it might all be in a freezer storage plant; it's supposed to be for food, but it's in a freezer storage plant, and maybe next year it will be sold. Well, unless you follow it from point to point to point, you can't make a case out of it. As far as they know, it's food. It's in the Lummi Island Band's storage in the U.S., but it's for food.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: I could go on for hours telling you stories about the Newfoundland fishery, the collapse of the cod fishery, the complete lack of supervision in relation to the other fisheries, the concerns about the destruction of the resource.

In fact just two weeks ago we had representation from the whole industry in Newfoundland come to Ottawa to present to the committee in relation to the shrimp fishery, over which there are all kinds of concerns now. It is the fishery that is now basically sustaining many people in the province, and if it goes by the wayside, we're going to be in very hard shape there; many people are right now.

However, we did have a fair salmon fishery also. Now it gets relegated strictly to recreational use, and many rivers are even closed for a lot of reasons—poaching, mismanagement, fishing on spawning grounds by others outside our jurisdiction. But there is practically no enforcement at all. We have very few protection people employed any more.

When we've looked at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans budget on other issues, they tell us it has been cut, and of course that's quite evident if you look at the budgets over the last few years. Fisheries and Oceans, the governance end of it, is almost abdicating all responsibilities for looking after the fishery. This is the major concern. It's something we have already made representation to in relation to infrastructure; certainly the same thing is true for the fishery. If the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is responsible for managing the fishery, then it should manage it properly or completely get out of the business. I think that's part of the problem we're facing at home, and I think it's part of the problem you're facing out here.

Mr. Mike Forrest: We believe it should manage it properly.

I'd like to give you one point regarding the difference between west coast and east coast in this sense. Salmon come back to visit you every two, three, or four years. All you have to do is count them, take care of the water conditions, and be diligent about making sure your spawn are where they should be and you will replicate this resource without a problem.

• 1624

Groundfish are out there, and who knows how many. There are population analyses, but it's different. The comparison of the two is not helpful here. People say the salmon fishery is going the way of the cod fishery in Newfoundland, but it won't if you keep watch diligently. And we're part of this hopeful solution.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Exactly. Except for the salmon in our rivers—a good salmon fishery, which we're also losing because of complete mismanagement—you're right. It's entirely different with the offshore fish. When we took in the Grand Banks, when we extended the limit to 200 miles, it did not take in all the continental shelf—

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Excuse me, Mr. Hearn. Could we get to the point?

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Sorry.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Actually, I interrupt because the next witness has a plane to catch—

Mr. Loyola Hearn: No problem.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): —and we're going to have to run a little short. Thank you.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Basically, without proper management, it doesn't matter; we run into the same problem you do.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Lunney, did you have a quick question?

Mr. James Lunney: I had a very quick one. Going back, the pilot sales seem to be something new that's come out here.

Mr. Mike Forrest: This was in 1992.

Mr. James Lunney: That's not really new. But I thought I heard you make comments about how when they first came up with these pilot sales, they weren't really a priority. Now you're saying it's been given the same level of priority as the commercial fisheries.

Are you talking about aboriginal food fish now suddenly being given pilot sales? Is this a sort of a side door for making food fish into sale fish? Is this what that's all about? If you could explain to us what—

Mr. Mike Forrest: It's blurring; it's becoming aboriginal fisheries. We're mixing the two.

And when one has a priority—food—and the other doesn't, all they have to do is show that it really wasn't for the other, it was for food, and it's there they have a priority. They can always go fishing before the commercial guys as long as they can show that it is for food, not for pilot sales; and that's where the trouble is.

Mr. James Lunney: All right, thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Mr. Forrest. We shall move on.

Mr. Mike Forrest: Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): I appreciate you taking your time today.

We will now hear from Mike Griswold from the Gulf Trollers Association.

Mr. Mike Forrest: Ask this guy about the Fraser panel issue.

Mr. Mike Griswold (President, Gulf Trollers Association): That's my old friend Mike Forrest.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, committee members. I honestly do thank you for the opportunity to express my frustration about what happened this year. Like Mike, I've been on the Fraser panel ever since its inception in 1985 with the culmination of the Pacific Salmon Treaty.

This is actually my second stint as president of the Gulf Trollers. I don't know why I came back, but I'm talking to politicians—you guys must know what that's like, too. I've been a part of various processes there having to do with fisheries management. Mike and I and a couple of others were chosen by the department to be stakeholder negotiators there to help facilitate a negotiated solution to the problems with Canada-U.S. treaty and harvest issues. I've been on the inside troll advisory committee and the south coast advisory committee.

I've also participated in the round-table process, on which Mike and Phil have both spoken. The round-table process was charged with coming up with some way of making the commercial fleet viable. We've heard Phil talk about the promises made; we've heard Mike talk about the promises made. I was there at the Delta Airport when Brian Tobin said, “The benefits of fleet rationalization will accrue to those who remain in the industry”. I'm still waiting; I haven't seen them yet.

Since 1997, we've had rather adverse ocean conditions, environmental conditions. They've actually played havoc with salmon runs, specifically runs of coho up in the Fraser River and the Thompson River—an offshoot of the Fraser—and up in the Skeena. But David Anderson, the minister at the time, decided we would have to curtail harvests.

• 1630

As a troller, my fleet was almost 100% dependent on catching coho and chinook stocks. In 1997 a zero harvest rate policy was instituted on those coho stocks. Consequently, that meant we had to change our methods in harvesting in British Columbia. That meant a whole new policy called selective fishing.

I bought into selective fishing because I saw the wisdom of it: we had to change, we had to respond to the marketplace; we had to respond to conservation needs. And there were definitely those who.... It was going to help the fishery if we could, with honesty, selectively harvest fish, either by using selective gear or avoidance where possible.

I became an ambassador for selective fishing. I spent three years on it. I led conferences. I ran two projects and I did a series of workshops. I ran two projects and I did a series of workshops last year, all with the idea in mind that we would be able to harvest the stocks of abundance.

• 1635

What's happened here in the south coast now is that the entire commercial fishery is focused on Fraser River sockeye. We used to have chinooks and coho in the balance. We had a few chum there. We had some other stocks in the south coast, but that's all been rendered down to Fraser River sockeye. That is the wealth, the basis of wealth for this fishery right now. So when we don't get Fraser River sockeye, we don't get money. It's as simple as that.

Sitting on the Fraser panel, I've participated in the management of the fisheries. I've seen the changes. I've seen the highs and I have seen the lows. In 1993 we had a run of approximately 24 million, which was a new modern-day record for this. And in 1995, because of environmental conditions, we saw the run plummet. That's what got us to the round table process. That's why we had to rationalize the fleet, because we realized that as much as anybody wanted to, we weren't going to get those 100 million runs that the Hudson's Bay Company personnel wrote about back in the old days. I don't think they could even count 100 million at that time. So we rationalized the fishery.

• 1639

In 1994 we were a little risky as far as our management went. We came very close—though we didn't come as close as some people would say, 24 hours from disaster—to overharvesting the fisheries stock. As a result, the department brought in risk-averse management.

Risk-averse management—Mike talked about it earlier—is basically that all fisheries management has inherent risks. What we were looking for in risk-averse management was taking a little more risk out of those management decisions. Consequently, we drew the fisheries in from the far-flung places. We used to have a troll fleet that fished Fraser River sockeye off the Queen Charlotte Islands. The Queen Charlotte Islands are about as far off as you can get in British Columbia and still be in B.C. They were targeting on Fraser River stocks.

We wanted to manage the fish closer to the river mouth. We've certainly done it. We've done it probably too far up the river mouth, because quite frankly, the commercial fisheries, which are dependent upon fishing in the marine area, have been shut out there.

There are a couple of things I want to talk about in regard to Fraser River management. One of them is the escapement policy. It's very easy to think that the more fish you put on the spawning grounds means the more fish that will return. Unfortunately, it doesn't work like that. You can get optimal returns off a lesser amount of fish. Unfortunately, there is a school of thought within DFO management.... There are new managers, not the same managers who were there during the heydays, the days of the blossoming of the Fraser River, and they're saying no, we'll always get more as long as we put more in.

What's happening now is that there are certain runs that are probably in jeopardy of crashing. One of them is the Chilko run. We've put a million fish up there. Consequently, we're probably going to get a million back. That's a one-to-one return. That's no investment at all. I don't think anybody would want to get that kind of interest rate.

But this also has a secondary effect. By increasing escapement into the rivers on some stock, we provide more fish into the river for those who harvest in the river.

I have been somewhat loath to feel that there's a conspiracy of the DFO to put us out of business. I don't think they're that smart. But if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and it sure is swimming like a duck, it must be a duck, because they are in essence putting us out of business.

Part of it is because of these increased escapement quotas. They are providing opportunities for the co-migrating stocks of abundance there for their client groups up the river, which are predominantly native tribes. In fact, they are all native tribes. They are talking about increasing escapement surplus to spawning requirement opportunities in those areas.

In 2001 we had an opportunity to fish on early summer-run stocks. On one of the graphs that Phil was passing around, if you look at the early summer-run stock for 2001, we broke a record this year. It's the highest. We just didn't get the opportunity to fish them.

There are a couple of reasons. One was that one of the client groups up the Fraser River asked for increased escapement, which basically meant that you couldn't harvest all those fish that were co-migrating with them. It wasn't necessarily a conservation requirement; it was a means to provide more fish to that client group, namely a tribe in the Shuswap area. The same thing could be said about some late-run stocks.

• 1644

In the risk-averse management there we looked at a run that was going to be officially about 6.4 million. We got it. We were hoping for a run of 12 million. God knows why we didn't get it, because that was the normal means of forecasting there. But one of the problems this year—and the department has known about it; it has been brought up by the Pacific Salmon Commission, the Fraser River panel staff, and talked about by the United States—is that we have rendered our ability to assess runs impotent. We just can't do it any more. In the old days, we used to assess runs by conducting commercial fisheries. Now we are totally dependent upon using test fisheries, and they are incomplete. Jim Woodey, the chief biologist of the Fraser River panel says he cannot do it and give us an accurate reading.

Why aren't we doing it? The reason we aren't doing it is because if you conduct the commercial fishery, the policy with the department is that it automatically triggers a commercial fishery by pilot sales in the river. One thing leads to another.

It has hamstrung us. We cannot manage the fishery any more. We have no flexibility, and flexibility is absolutely necessary in order to run this fishery. All of a sudden we've put ourselves into this very narrow little box and are trying to provide opportunities, and we have no room to move.

So why couldn't we fish this summer? I was one of the lucky guys. Being in an outside area, I fished. In the troll fishery in area H, we had four or five days of fishing. We didn't catch very much fish, but in comparison to my brothers who fished down off the Fraser River, we did wonderfully. But I'm not going out and buying anything new these days; in fact, I think I'm going to have to try to sell it, because I'm really, quite frankly, on the edge of personal bankruptcy.

So what happened this year? The run went up and the run went down. That's what happens every year with managing the Fraser sockeye. But there were some overriding concerns: one, we were not able to access the early summer runs, which would have provided some opportunity; and two, we were harvesting at a 17% level on late-run sockeye stocks because of the problem with the parasites and the early arrival of late-run stocks into the Fraser River, which Mike was talking about when he gave testimony in the spring.

The constraint on that fishery was a 17% harvest rate. We were falling within it. There was some opportunity. However, things changed, as they always do. Around August 17, that 17% harvest rate became zero. There will be no harvest rate on late-run stock. It has the net effect of saying, sorry, boys, there ain't no more sockeye fishery this year by the non-native commercial fleet. That was it. It basically closed it down.

There's another side to sitting on the Fraser River panel, because you're in direct negotiations with the United States. With all due right, the United States is getting suspicious, because quite frankly, we're jobbing them out of some fish. Just as the commercial fleet is getting jobbed out of fish right now, the United States is getting jobbed out of fish. I think we are probably going to end up having diplomatic notes passed back and forth because of departmental management policy on the Fraser River.

• 1649

There is jiggery-pokery there with the escapement goals and whatnot. Because the department has the right under the terms of the treaty to set escapement targets, they are being set so high as to provide no TAC. This is not what the United States signed off on. They signed off on an idea that was enhanced through the treaty that took place in 1985. I warn you, that is coming along. They have already raised those issues with the Fraser panel.

We talked about why we weren't getting into fish. Specifically, there is a burden of conservation. We all accept it as commercial fishermen. As users of the resource, we accept that burden. That is the cost of doing business. Some days you fish, some days you don't fish. When it is said, during the course of Fraser panel meetings, that we can't let you guys fish because it triggers the native fisheries in the river, quite frankly we don't think we have control of them.

What are we to do? One DFO official says if I let this Fraser River gillnetter go, it means I will have to spend my winter in court. What are we paying the guy $70,000 a year for anyway? He's supposed to manage the resource. That is part of the job. He would have to spend his winter in court because the native fishery, the pilot sales fishery, would feel they had the right to go.

There's one thing I would like to say, and this is probably in defence of the minister. The minister had the impression that pilot sales, which was a harvest agreement, was on the same plane as the commercial fisheries. That is not the case. The pilot sales fishery this year was treated as a contractual arrangement and was given priority, just as if it had some constitutional justification too.

Just to skip around a little bit, in 1985 when we first negotiated a treaty, there was an exemption of 400,000 pieces for the native fishery and it has blossomed to 1.2 million. That has further hamstrung the ability of the commercial fleet to catch fish right now.

Of particular frustration to me this year was the management of pink salmon. We have put 20 million pink salmon on the spawning grounds. That is probably going to return 10 million fish in 2003. I mean, we're going to have a net loss of that. I was trying to provide an opportunity for my fleet to fish. The reason we could not fish this year was because of “late-run conservation needs”.

We were catching sockeye along with the pink salmon but we were shaking them. We were putting the fish back in the water. The last day I fished I had approximately 500 pink salmon. I shook six sockeye. The standard formula, therefore, the mortality assessment there—sockeye is a pretty hardy animal—is that one in ten is what you kill. The proportion of late runs of those six fish was about 20%. I would say it was about 0.3% of the fish...actually, my math is bad, but it was not very much.

Once again, this is the burden of conservation. If the burden of conservation is turned into reallocation, it is going to put us all out of business. There has to be a level playing field. We can't get along without it.

• 1654

What do we do to fix it? I fully subscribe to the recommendations that both Phil and Mike made that we do need a sort of industrial solution as far as the fishery goes.

I've seen in some of the proposed treaty arrangements that we would start looking at harvest agreements. Well, we see how DFO treats harvest agreements. Basically, they are almost a guaranteed fishery once again. They don't work. You can't guarantee something when it's not there. We don't know if the fish will be there. We want to make sure that we see something that is responsive to the runs of fish.

What else do we need to do? We need to see DFO refine that ability to mount fisheries on real-time abundance. They are locked in a shell right now. They have abdicated their responsibility to mount fisheries. I always thought they were there to manage fisheries. Right now, it seems they're there to manage not fishing, and that ain't very hard.

A few years ago the Auditor General put forward a report on consultation. It was about three years ago. We have yet to see a consultative process that is viable, workable, that will allow fishermen direct input into the policy decisions that affect their livelihoods. We've been waiting. All we've been doing is getting edicts from above, and the chief edict-maker has now moved off to Ottawa. Maybe we'll see some changes. But it's about time we had the opportunity to participate in those decisions that affect our livelihood.

Last but not least, you asked what we suggest you might say to Dr. John Davis when you have that opportunity. What he's going to tell you is only what his officials will tell you. He's just walked into the job, and I sort of feel sorry for him because he's inherited a mess. I hope he can put it back on the rails.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you, Mr. Griswold.

Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you again.

I have a question on the pink. We've heard that twice now—Mr. Forrest mentioned it as well—that there was a very large return of pink.

Mr. Mike Griswold: Very large.

Mr. James Lunney: What was it? Was it in the order of 19 million?

Mr. Mike Griswold: The spawning grounds assessment, and this was at the last Fraser panel meeting at the end of October, was that approximately 20 million had gone up the river.

Mr. James Lunney: Again, if I understood you correctly, you expect a return there of maybe 10 million down the line.

Mr. Mike Griswold: It's my personal projection now, but I don't believe that 20 million fish is going to beget 100 million fish. I think it's going to beget about 10 million fish. There's far too much there.

Mr. James Lunney: We've heard it explained, I think, that too many fish disturb the others.

Mr. Mike Griswold: Exactly! They dig up the nests from the previous fish.

Mr. James Lunney: I'm still trying to get a better understanding of why they didn't allow fishing of this large return. Did I hear you say it has something to do with protecting the late run? Was it another species they were trying to protect?

Mr. Mike Griswold: The late run of sockeye. The Fraser River, as you know, is divided into four basic components. There's early spring, early summer, summer run, and late run. The abundance this year occurred primarily on the summer run. There were approximately five million fish in the summer run. That is a very conservative number and is based on what the total catch was, plus the escapement assessed by what had gone past the initial echo sounding.

Mr. James Lunney: Right. But if there was good escapement on the early run, where the conservation goals had already been met, why was it so important to conserve the late run? Are they somehow different?

• 1659

Mr. Mike Griswold: The problem with the late run was that for the previous four years the late runs had been entering the Fraser River earlier than their norm. Once they went up the river, they held in the fresh water and were susceptible to a specific parasite called parvi capsula. In 2000, it basically wiped out 97% of the run.

We did not see the same degree of mortality this year as in 2000, but it was definitely a concern. We basically held our harvest of late-run fish in check because of that.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): We'll move on to Madam Tremblay, please.

Mrs. Suzanne Tremblay: No.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Griswold, you're a troller, so maybe you can help me interpret a sheet of paper that was part of the presentation of Mr. Eidsvik. It talks about the reduction of the troll fleet. I appreciate you don't have it in front of you. I'm just interested in understanding what he's talking about there. Maybe you can help me out.

In 1995, he says there were 606 trollers eligible to fish Fraser sockeye.

Mr. Mike Griswold: Let me clarify that. In 1995, previous to any fleet reductions, there were 1,400 trollers and they were all eligible to fish Fraser River sockeye, provided it was open there for them.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So what's this 606? Is that after the reductions?

Mr. Mike Griswold: It's probably after the first round of the buy-back.

Mr. Tom Wappel: That's the first bullet point, and he talks about Fraser sockeye. Then the other bullet points talk about areas. They don't talk about Fraser sockeye. How many areas are encompassed by the Fraser sockeye?

Mr. Mike Griswold: Do you mean how many are allowed to fish Fraser sockeye?

Mr. Tom Wappel: Yes.

Mr. Mike Griswold: There are three troll areas on the coast right now. There are two areas that are allowed Fraser sockeye catch. They are area H, the waters bound by Vancouver Island and the mainland of British Columbia, and area G, which is the area on the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So the 606 trollers eligible to fish the Fraser sockeye were eligible to do so in areas G and H.

Mr. Mike Griswold: That's right.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Then he says that in 2001 only 239 area G trollers and 157 area H trollers.... If your math is bad, mine is worse. If I add this up quickly, 239 plus 157 is 496, in 2001, from 606—

Mr. Mike Griswold: It's 396. Don't do my taxes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I told you my math was worse.

Okay, and then he says 13 were eligible. What does that mean—13 of what were eligible for what? I didn't have a chance to ask all these questions. Since you're a troller, I thought you might know.

Mr. Mike Griswold: I don't know what that bullet means there.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Maybe you could ask an expert witness like Phil back there.

Phil, on page 13, could you clarify the third bullet point?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: It's a misprint on page 13.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So what's the number?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: It should show that 396 boats were eligible to fish Fraser river sockeye.

Mr. Tom Wappel: All right. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

On page 24 of Mr. Eidsvik's report, he says in bullet 2 that monitoring and enforcement of public commercial fisheries is intense and was non-existent in the aboriginal fishery.

Would you agree with that statement?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Yes, I would. I come to that reluctantly, because, quite frankly, I have invested a lot of time in believing that DFO was the best-situated authority to do the job. I no longer have that feeling.

• 1704

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I ask that question because if there were no boats fishing, as was indicated, there could be no enforcement—nobody was fishing. If the aboriginal community was not being monitored by the enforcement officers, what were the enforcement officers doing? Did they go to another area of the province?

All of you have said no boats were fishing for the sockeye this fall. Nobody. You said there was intense monitoring of the fishery. If there was nobody fishing, there was no monitoring. So if there was no monitoring of the aboriginal fishery, what were the monitors doing last summer? Did they have vacations?

• 1709

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Well, no. There is some monitoring of the aboriginal fishery. In fact, the department, through Bridget Ennevor, who's a departmental official, decided to convene a report there.

The report was done by ESSA Technologies, and the results showed basically that during the open times they had a grasp of what the fishing was, but they just didn't have a grasp of what the fishing was during the closed times. They did note that the nets were in the water during the closed times.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: For the record, there is some sort of monitoring there.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: There is a modicum of monitoring.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay. Very good.

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: It's not to the same degree or level that is done on the commercial fleet.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: I appreciate that.

Also, you said there were about 20,000 pink and about 6.4 million sockeye. Is that right?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: There were 20 million pink.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: For the clarification of the committee, and for the record, if you are able to fish the sockeye, who do you sell them to and what happens to that product?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: The troll fleet basically sells them and they primarily go into a frozen line. They're gutted and sometimes split there, or sometimes they're frozen whole. They're basically shipped to Japan as frozen product.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: What happens to the pink?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: Some of the pink goes into the canned market and some goes into the frozen market. Quite a bit of it is sold privately, off the wharves.

• 1714

Mr. Peter Stoffer: As my colleague, Mr. Cuzner, said earlier, there's quite a domino effect. If you're not fishing, you can't sell the product to someone, and then the processors and all those other people suffer as well from lack of opportunity.

Mr. Mike Griswold: There have definitely been casualties in the marketplace there. Phil talked about it earlier. There was an expectation that it was going to be fished, quite frankly. Yes, the fleet was all built up there, with the thinking there was going to be about a 12 million run. It didn't turn out to be that, but they didn't expect 250,000. In my experience, and you heard it from the other testimony, we should have had ten times that amount in the harvesting of the commercial fishery.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: This is my last question, Mr. Chairman, and I thank you for the time. I thought you would like to ask a question yourself.

On page 28 of Mr. Eidsvik's brief.... And you mentioned that Mr. Davis was just recently appointed, so he may not have all the answers we're looking for.

Mr. Mike Griswold: But he certainly has the officials, who he can bring in to the meeting with him.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

Would you agree or disagree with the following statement: bureaucrats are making liars of the ministers?

Mr. Mike Griswold: I would say that is a specific truth, and I do know of the case where Paul Ryall basically made a liar of the minister. The minister fully believed the commercial fishery and the pilot sales fishery were on an even ground. Mr. Ryall, as manager of the Fraser River at the time, district chief of the Fraser River, treated the pilot sales fishery as a contractual arrangement that had priority.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I'm going to pass whatever time is left to you, if you like.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Does the committee have any other questions?

Thank you very much, Mr. Griswold.

Mr. Mike Griswold: Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): The next witness is from the Fishing Vessels Owners' Association of British Columbia, Glen Budden, Mr. Rezansoff.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff (President, Fishing Vessels Owners' Association of British Columbia): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

This is the third time in my fishing career I've made a statement to the standing committee. It seems every time I do, the fishing fleet and I are in worse shape than the time previous, this time to the point where we're almost ready to go beneath the waves.

I'm president of the vessel owners' association. I'm also president of the Herring Research and Conservation Society. I'm a board member of the Code of Conduct for Responsible Fisheries, chairman of the Fishing Industry Selective Salmon Harvesters, and chairman of the Salmon Harvesters Association, so I have some reasonable knowledge of the fishery.

What I'd like to do is give you a presentation that outlines the management problems of the seine fleet, how we tried to mount a fishery in area 20 and the problems we had with the department, and perhaps some recommendations at the end.

The vessel owners' association has been in business since 1938, and we're very concerned about the state of the management system in the department at present. We would surely like some help from your committee perhaps in suggesting the management system has to be somewhat restructured.

In doing that, I'd like to give you a summary of the fishing season and focus on the Juan de Fuca Strait pool fishery as an example of DFO management problems.

The fishery this year had a pre-season forecast of approximately 12 million Fraser sockeye, but it was around 5 million to 7 million, at a 75% probability range. It would have been the first significant fishery opportunity in four years, because we had minimal or closed seine fisheries on the Fraser stocks in 1998, 1999, and 2000. Some of the problems the department has in managing the fishery is that they have a significant need to pass stocks through to the river for the AFS fishery, which then makes it more difficult for organizations like ourselves and the outside trollers and what have you to fish.

Another problem at the department is a lack of knowledge and experience amongst senior DFO managers. If you've been around for a long time like I have—I've been at this for 39 years—you'd know we did have career management people at senior staff levels, people who had hands-on knowledge and experience of running the fishery. I don't see those people now.

• 1719

Our last regional director general was somebody who came from parks. There's a significant difference between managing Banff or Jasper or some park in the central part of Canada and managing a dynamic, ever-changing resource like salmon. How can you put somebody in charge of a department, and then, even worse than that, have people below that level with the same lack of knowledge? It's gotten to the point where even the resource council is expressing serious concerns about the continuity of experienced management at the department.

The department has a fear that the in-river fishery will take more fish than necessary, which again makes it overcautious with the commercial fisheries on the outside. In regard to some of the problems they had in 2001, or concerns, well yes, there's definitely a coho conservation problem, but in the same fishery—I'm speaking specifically for us now—we've proven we can fish among coho concentrations and be selective, not damage that stock. So have the other fleets.

There was a concern about low water and high temperature. In actual fact, the conditions were optimal. There was concern about weak summer runs, but we had the largest escapement in 75 years. There was concern about the parasites, and it turned out that wasn't so bad either. And there are some imaginary problems the department thinks of; for example, they still have this mindset that we have this huge seine fleet, that we just cannot have an opening because we have this huge vacuum cleaner fleet. In reality, the fleet has shrunk by two-thirds compared to where we were in 1995. The size of our fleet is around 160 to 170 boats. There are 271 licences, but there's a bunch of boats that are double-licensed and can't participate in both areas at the same time. I think there are 110 boats in the north, and there are 160 or 170—it varies because boats were transferred into the AFS fishery. Those are the approximate numbers.

There's a concern about high harvest rates, but in order to have high harvest rates you have to have large quantities of fish. If it's a small run—and we proved that very clearly this year—we don't catch large quantities of fish just because we happen to be there.

There's been inadequate test fishing. The department killed the test fishing. The best fish test, as Jim Woodey repeats time and time again, is having a seine fishery in the Johnstone Strait and in Juan de Fuca on the same day at the same time. That gives the best results. That's what all your test information at the department or at the commission is based on, the continuity of that fishery. So if you don't have that fishery, you don't have confidence in your testing.

We're brailing now, whereas boats like mine were built to ramp fish, so our efficiency is lowered by 30% to 50%. The department was concerned that we weren't going to be selective in the south, even though we've been conducting a selective fishery in the north on the same relative sensitivity of stocks for quite a number of years, and have proven we have a good success ratio. And it's virtually the same fleet, because we're double-licensed. In addition to that, the leadership of the various organizations and individual fishermen in the fleet were prepared to use whatever peer pressure they could to make sure everybody adhered to the strictest standards.

There were also some impacts the department had on making our plans to go fishing. They had to have fish go through to the AFS.

A voice: What is the AFS?

Mr. Glen Budden (Fishing Vessels Owners' Association of British Columbia: The aboriginal fishing strategy.

A voice: Thank you.

Mr. Glen Budden: They had the early- and late-run concerns, which shortened the fishing time to a seven- to ten-day harvest window. There was also the lack of having openings previously, the test fishery problem, to assess run size. And once we got into the season, they didn't schedule further openings, which led to the underestimation of the run size and the loss of further fishing opportunities, not only for us but for all the other fleets.

• 1724

Among the things they demanded of us while we were planning this fishery was they were not going to let us go into Juan de Fuca, which we haven't fished since about 1995, unless we removed all the competition from the fishery.

If we didn't gain access to Juan de Fuca—to the San Juan fishery—and there was a diversion right around the outside of the island, then all of the fleets—area G, area H, and our fishery, area D—none of us would have achieved our allocation. If the fish went around through Juan de Fuca Straits and we fished specifically in Johnstone Strait, all of us would have come up short, if they even allowed us to fish. So everybody was desirous of having the same fleet operate out there.

They wanted us to prove we could be selective and that the mortality in the south coast was the same as it was in the north coast. They weren't accepting the proof that we'd already shown up there. In order to effect this fishery, we started having meetings in late November 2000. We had some initial meetings amongst the fleet, industry, and some line managers from the department. We put down every possible option and every possible consideration we could around coho conservation. That led to about 20 separate meetings, right up to the fishery. Now, we're not getting paid for these meetings, but we're having meetings two and three times a day to try to move the department to allow us to fish.

At the end of June, they finally approved the fishery. Some of the elements of that fishery were that everybody was going to be equal—we were going to pool our catch; we were going to have observers for monitoring and catch validation; the fishery would start slowly and would increase effort if the interception was low and within limits and everybody was playing the game the way it was supposed to be.

We had quite a cross-section from the industry, and people in the industry were highly critical of many of us who were advocating this fishery, for agreeing to it. We were saying if we did it, we would get increased fishing time; that was the carrot. The critics were saying we probably wouldn't get the fishing time, and then the department would insist on pool fisheries in all the other fisheries without any benefit. So far, that's basically what's happened.

Because of the way the fishery was set up, only 73 out of the 165 vessels licensed participated. Some of the requirements were: you had to have specialized equipment to go there; you had to put up a $5,000 performance bond out of your own pocket; each vessel had to sign a contract, which we spent a lot of time preparing, so that you were contractually bound to specific fishing conditions and practices.

Every vessel participating—and even if you didn't participate—had to put up $500, which was not returnable, although they got some of it back, to cover the vessel training and administrative fees. In all, we collected about $600,000 to effect that fishery. We gave training sessions to all the skippers—not all the crews, but to all the skippers.

About 130 vessels qualified, after training, to go to that fishery. We divided the area into 20 blocks. We had a requirement to hail in after every set—not just at the end of the day, but every set. Compare that to an aboriginal fishery, where there's no monitoring. We had one of our people, and some processing-sector people, on the boat with the management team.

We provided the management vessel, because the department doesn't have a management vessel. So we took a boat out of the fleet and gave him an equal share so that we could have a damn management vessel to run the fishery on. We had 30% monitoring by on-grounds observers, who were moved around from boat to boat. I myself had a camera testing operation on the boat, with 100% positional, operational, and visual monitoring twenty-four hours a day for seven days a week.

We had to phone in after the fishery, just as we do with every other fishery we do on the coast—a phone-in to a monitoring company to give them an approximation of what we have on board, which is then checked against what we deliver to see whether we were high or low, whether we were coming close to the number we're hailing. We had 100% in-plant monitoring at delivery, for numbers and potential by-catch problems.

The fishery started; 20% of the vessels were chosen to begin the fishery. Out of that 20%, only 15 boats were allowed to start, compared with up to 250 in 1995 and earlier.

• 1729

There were low catches. There were minimal coho catches. Almost everything was being released. We said there had to be more vessels in to determine the run size. At around noon, they expanded it by a little bit more. There were no more problems. The recording system was working well. Around one o'clock, they expanded the fleet a little more—and then closed it at seven o'clock the first day.

They caught around 9,000 sockeye, 146 coho, 134 springs, and 2 steelheads—110 sets in total. In a normal fishery, under the conditions we used to fish in out there, 110 sets would be accomplished by about 10 boats. We had 250 boats. There were 200 boats there in years past.

This time we had 110 sets for the day; 42 sets were brailed, and 68 were released—released! That's a new one in the fishing fleet. They were released because we discussed and decided that if there was an incidence of coho and a low catch, we were better to release the set without touching the fish and prolong the fishing opportunity.

That day we had a conference and said we should increase the pace of the fishery. The department insisted they would do it gradually. The next day we started with 30%. We got a minimal target—a non-target. They expanded it to 38 vessels. At 9:35 a.m. they expanded it to 53, and at 12 o'clock they expanded it to 73. At 12 o'clock the full fleet was finally fishing, and we were going to close at 7 o'clock.

So we had seven hours of fishing with a 73-vessel fleet, and it never opened again for the rest of the year. We had 411 sets for the year. We caught roughly 46,000 sockeye—about 4,000 pounds a boat—and released about 466 coho. Only six upper-Thompson coho were caught. That's from the expansion factor they use—the presence of Thompson coho mixed in with the rest of the coho. Based on a mortality rate of 15%, we probably only killed one Thompson coho.

It took six months of my life, and everybody else's lives, to prepare that fishery. The revenue we generated didn't even cover the cost of my fuel coming down from the north to go fishing there. It didn't cover the cost of running the mortality tests the department was doing out there. They wouldn't even allow us to continue fishing to defray the cost of the mortality study—a gold-plated mortality study, I might add, too, not one that just addressed the problem; there were lots of little facets about it.

The average value of a vessel in the south is about $1 million. We made $5,600 out there. That's a pretty low return on investment—extremely low.

The failure of that fishery is going to make it extremely difficult to bring any kind of future initiative to the fleet and expect they'll look at it with any kind of credibility. It was a long stretch to convince everybody to go to that fishery. That's an entirely different method of fishing salmon. It was never done before, ever, on this coast. We agreed to it and we didn't get the carrot at the end. There's no more confidence that the department will keep its promises.

I'm very similar to Mike Griswold and Mike Forrest. I advocated fleet reduction, bought into the whole process, bought a second licence, was waiting for the benefits of that. Now, for this year, I can honestly tell you it's the first year I honestly felt it's not going to happen: we're just not going to get there.

Those are some of the problems with the fishery that we've had. Other problems we can relate to the same fisheries. Right now in Saanich Inlet, Phil mentioned, there's a chum fishery going on for 150,000 ESSR chum. For those of you who don't know what an ESSR fishery is, when it was first presented to the salmon fleet it was to be open to all non-fishery-involved groups. That meant if you were a rod and gun club, or a conservation club, or somebody who was interested in enhancement of stocks, you could apply for an ESSR licence, but if you were a commercial fisherman you couldn't.

The profits from it were to be returned to benefit the fishery. In other words, it was supposed to be used for increasing the run sizes, or what have you. We in the commercial industry pointed out that this would become a private fishery. We could see the pitfalls of it. You would manage the fishery so that ESSR would occur, but commercial fishing wouldn't.

• 1734

Two seine boats, both of which sold their licence through the buy-back and are no longer licensed, caught that 150,000 chum. The entire same fleet went fishing in Johnstone Strait for chum and caught 155,000 chum. The entire seine fleet was eligible to go. Two guys went and caught 150,000 chum. If two guys can go catch 150,000 chum in a fishery that's isolated from other stocks, why can't the other 167 guys who are commercially licensed go and fish in the same area for virtually the same run size of the normal fishery?

Something's wrong. Something is drastically wrong when fish are transferred to a private fishery and against.... I had this same discussion with somebody from DFO this week down at Fish Expo. It is against the way this thing is supposed to be operationalized. It's supposed to be after you've exhausted or you've had adequate opportunities for the commercial fleet to access that fish. There were no opportunities to access that fish other than a one-shot assessment fishery in Johnstone Strait.

If there were 150,000 chum swimming around out in front of the Gulf Stream that were accessible by two non-licensed seine boats, then I could sure as hell access them. What's wrong with me? I paid $3,800 for my privilege.

As has been stated, the pink salmon exceeded 20 million. We had one opening or two openings on that and virtually nothing was caught.

There's no evidence in my mind to indicate that the department considers fishing an appropriate business any more. Three years ago I was at the PSARC. For those of you who don't know, PSARC is the scientific process where they're doing peer review of the scientific papers and so on. One of the fisheries biologists stated, “We're not in production mode any more; we're in conservation mode.” That's true. Conservation to the extreme; no fishing whatsoever.

Every year the department promises to do better. It never happens. Unfortunately, we're running out of time. This year it went to the extent that one of the people who was tasked with managing this fishery apologized to a group of fishermen that we didn't fish. You can't eat apologies. The management system's getting worse instead of better.

You could conclude that the destruction of the public commercial salmon fishery is an objective, but I'm one who's like Mike. I don't think the department's that smart or has that kind of a devious plan.

What I do believe, though, is that the management system has incrementally changed. While there's no large identifiable point beyond say AFS and the fact that there is risk-averse management and increased escapement, the cumulative effect of these changes over a long period of time has effected a mindset change in the department that precludes fishing. It precludes taking a risk to go fishing.

Our executive director worked for the department for 25 years. He was in charge of the herring fishery. He goes with us to the herring industry advisory process.

I'll give you a little anecdote that just happened to us. The guy put in place the entire management system. He integrated the science, the management, and the industry so that the process is one of the better managed fisheries on the whole coast.

At the end of the day we have fisheries managers questioning the TAC that's approved by PSARC. So PSARC, the scientific process, says, “You can catch 1,500 tonnes of herring in an area; that's the allowable catch”, and we have fisheries managers questioning whether we should do that.

There's something wrong. I tell you this is a carry-over from salmon. They've gone into this mindset that we shouldn't fish. Our executive director kept telling him, “The TAC is what the TAC is. It's based on sound management recognized all over the world. Why are you questioning the science?” That's what's happening in the salmon.

I was running a booth at Fish Expo for the Code of Conduct, of which I'm a board member. Here's another little anecdote for you. I had an American fisherman come up to me on Thursday—an American, mind you—who told me he had a very good season fishing Fraser sockeye. He asked how did I make out. I said, I got around 400, and I guess 600 sockeye was our share. But he had a very good season, in a couple of days or one day, whatever it was.

• 1739

In the national fishing magazine down in the United States, there's a lead article about the great opening the Americans had on Fraser sockeye. The guy sitting behind me didn't have that. Then he looked me in the eye and he smiled and he said, “On the 19 million pink run and a 6 million to 7 million sockeye run, you didn't fish. When are you going to fish?” That's what he asked me. “When are you going to fish if you can't fish on that run?”

• 1744

The question I think that should be put to you is not why did the department close it? You were asking all of the previous witnesses on what basis the department closed it. They're probably going to say conservation. I would turn that around to you. You should be asking the department, “When are Bob and the rest of the fishermen going to fish if they can't fish on a 6 million sockeye run and they can't fish on a 19 million pink run?” That's probably where we're going to be at for a long time.

In fact, I'll tell you that if you took today's management regime, took the rules and regulations as they are now and how AFS factors into it, and took a retrospective look at the last 40 years and all the runs we've had and all the escapements we've had, and asked the department, on which one of those years would they have fished using today's rules, I'll bet you there are probably only two or three, or less than you could count on one hand.

• 1749

You have to ask yourself.... We fished in all those 40 years, and we were on a continual rebuilding cycle. You can slough that off by saying, well, environmental conditions were good and the runs were building up. But we fished, and we fished a lot of days—gillnetters in a river for one or two days a week, and we trolled seven days a week. Now we don't fish at all. The runs are there, but we don't fish.

The system is broken. It isn't broken just to the point where it needs tinkering; it needs a serious, long, hard look at what corner we've backed ourselves into that does not allow us to have openings. What is wrong with this system? As part of it, mention was made of the cod fishery back east and the rest of it. That fishery isn't the same as this, but the mindset that came out of that washed over onto this coast and had us look at this fishery differently.

The department has to go back, not in a confrontational way where we're ranting and raving at each other, but we have to have a serious look at what's wrong with this system. Why are we not fishing in the face of these run sizes? There's something wrong.

So some of the recommendations include fisheries management agreements with industry, co-management agreements. The pool fishery agreement that we had was sort of a co-management one. That's an example.

The allocations have to be firmed up. Alaska, our major competitor, is seriously looking between the government and the user groups at leaving the department out of the business of telling people how to catch their fish—setting the allocations, determining whether the run is there, and leaving the operational responsibility for the catching of the fish to the guys who are actually catching it. The government right now doesn't seem to have any respect for the public right to fish. That pretty well is the base of our report.

I might add, the question was asked previously, what were the impacts of this management regime on the processing sector? Processors need a buildup to operate efficiently. They can't go from zero to 100% operational capability in a plant instantly. They need to be able to run the plant on the shoulders of the run and get things going, get the staff in place. They have the core staff, but if we would have had a large run, if we would have had the 12 million and we had this tiny little window with no opportunity to go with a buildup, they would have gone from scratch to 1,200 people, if they could find them, to run the large plant, the one that I fish for, all in the space of a week. That can't happen. That's not rational. You can't ask an industry to go from zero to full start-up overnight. So if you're wondering what the impacts on the processing sector are, that's one of the major impacts.

Anyway, there's lots of discussion here about monitoring. I fish in the northern area too. Two or three times a day we get asked by an on-grounds monitor what we're catching. We have to report in as we're leaving what we're leaving with. We have to phone in within 24 hours of the fishery being closed with what we've caught. When we deliver that fish, there's a fish slip that goes to the department, and we have to fill in on the sheet that we phoned in on what we actually delivered, so that there can be a comparison. We have to have a phone-in number, a confirmation number, that we've actually done that. If we don't do all that, they might not give us the licence next year. It doesn't happen to any of these other guys.

On selective fishing, while we were in San Juan, it took us six months to put that plan together to go fishing. While we were fishing there, there were four aboriginal fishing strategy boats fishing in amongst us. To add insult to injury, we get one day out of the whole year and they're fishing amongst us. We're brailing and doing all the other things, and they're ramping. They're fishing the way they always did; there's no change.

• 1754

There's something wrong. If there's a conservation problem on coho, then there's a conservation problem for everybody—not just for Bob or for the guys behind me, but for everybody, and that's not recognized.

Anyway, that's the basis of our submission.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Rezansoff, on that last point, I wonder if you would clarify for the committee your term “ramping” and the fact that the aboriginal boats didn't do that.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: In the fleet we have right now, the majority of the boats were built to bring fish over the stern. They have a tilt on the stern so that they can bring large volumes of fish over the stern and be extremely efficient in handling volumes of fish in a quick period of time. That doesn't lend itself to sorting the catch, being selective, and returning fish to the water alive, so now we hold the fish alongside and brail them out with a small dip net that takes anywhere from a hundred to three hundred at a time, depending on species. We put them into an aluminum box and sort them. If they need reviving, we put them into a revival tank and hold them in that tank until they're revived. If they're vigorous in the box and don't need reviving, we usually release them alive immediately.

That's quite a change in how we operate from what we did before, the difference being that a boat our size could probably ramp 5,000, 6,000, or 7,000 pinks over the stern in a matter of minutes with no problem, whereas if we had 5,000 or 6,000 pinks alongside, brailing them and sorting them at 300 a time, that's quite a few individual dips.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): As one other point, you mentioned the Mifflin plan, and prior to 1995-96 you had a licence that allowed you to fish the whole coast. After, the coast was divided for the same fleet into two areas, and if you wanted to fish as you had done before, you had to buy a separate licence.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Actually, when they divided the coast into two areas, A and D, you had to pick an area. I picked the southern area. That was in 1996. We had no opening in 1996, or we had one for one day and there were no fish caught. It was after all the fish had gone by. So I essentially missed a year.

The following year, I purchased a licence for the other area at a cost of about $300,000. So we bought heavily into the plan that was going to give us economic viability, and so far, it hasn't happened.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): In other words, you had to pay another $300,000 for fishing you had done before.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Yes, $300,000, and I'm still paying.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Are there questions?

Mr. Lunney.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you.

First, where is area 20?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Area 20 is Juan de Fuca, from Sheringham Point out to Carmanah, or to the entrance to the Strait of Juan de Fuca, at the bottom end of Vancouver Island, right out to the open ocean.

Mr. James Lunney: Okay, good. If I understood you right, you said you didn't pay all of your fleet bills from the area 20....

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Nobody made any money by coming down. A bunch of us who came down there, who were double-licensed and were fishing in the northern area, in the Skeena or the central area, left that fishery to travel here, and in fact gave up a couple of days fishing there to travel here because we thought it made sense. We went fishing on 4,000 sockeye at a dollar a pound, which is about $4,000. I'm sure my fuel bill was $4,000. So when you deduct all the costs of coming here and missing fishing time.... It continued to remain open in the north, so we not only left a few days of fishing, but we lost about three days before we went back. So it was a direct cost out of pocket.

In addition to that, for the fleet in general, we were supposed to pay for the mortality study that was going to be done on coho. It was supposed to show you the problems of setting that fishery up.

Initially we were told we wouldn't have to do the mortality study. Then we were told we would have to. Then we were told, no, they would take care of it. Finally, we were told that they would put the logistics of it together, but we would have to pay for it out of our catch. So everybody was going to contribute towards the cost of this mortality study, or it was going to come out of the $500 that everyone paid for training. There wasn't enough money there to cover the cost of the study. Eventually, at the end, we told the department, look, we didn't ask for this study, you guys did; nobody else is paying for theirs, so we're not going to—and we just refused to pay.

• 1759

Mr. James Lunney: Was the gist of this that you were actually fishing up in this area 20, and then it opened down in the other area, so you left one area and went racing down there and got disappointed at the other end? Do these openings happen at the same time, so there's confusion—

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Yes. If you're multiple-licensed, you probably can't access both areas at the same time.

What happened was we were fishing in the Skeena, and they said that the central area might open, then that it might not, and finally they said it would open. The way the fishery was structured, you had to phone in. The cut-off was 36 hours before it opened. You had to indicate by phone or fax that you were going to participate, and then you had to be actually in San Juan and Port Renfrew ten hours before the opening. You had to be there to physically pick up your licence, otherwise you were ineligible for that fishery. So we not only had to leave early from Prince Rupert, we had to run at full bore and burn fuel to get there to go to the fishery, to meet these conditions.

Mr. James Lunney: I want to take it another way, and that's back to this ESSR, excess salmon spawning requirement. Now, that's something that's fairly new, it seems to me, but I wanted to get a little more clarification on this. It says in one of the presentations that the public has no access to these ESSR licences, that they are native-only. Is that correct?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: If you look at the history of them, when they were first presented to us, I was a member of South Coast Advisory. When it was first presented that they were going to have these ESSR fisheries, it was explained that these were going to be open to all groups that didn't have a fishing licence or weren't connected with the commercial industry. The licences were going to be for after the commercial industry had accessed the fish.

Theoretically, you might think there are areas where we might be fishing, yet fish are getting by us. No matter what we do, the fish are getting by us because there are just too many, because of the conditions, or whatever, so there might be an excess to spawning requirements. This will then cause the spawn to be dug up by the new fish. So there might be a situation where you would want to take these fish.

It was initially set up to be open to any group, but very quickly, within one or two years, it was changed to be strictly open to aboriginal groups. And there's no transparency to that process. The money was supposed to be used for rehabbing the runs and so on. I've never seen any documentation as to where that money goes, who gets it, whether the fish is sold legitimately, or whether it's sold at a low cost on the first go-round and the profit reaped on the second go-round. There's no transparency to it. It's essentially a transfer.

In addition to that, I'd be willing to bet you right now any amount of money you want that this fish will be used as history for treaty settlements. You keep the commercial fleet from fishing, you transfer fish to the aboriginals by ESSR, and then when you go to treaty, you say, well, that's the history; we caught 150,000 fish at Goldstream year after year. Because it's history, there's no compensation to the commercial fishermen for that fish in the treaty. It's a double-edged sword—probably a quadruple-edged sword.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: I am going to ask you a question to help illuminate the situation for me, given that I am not a fisheries specialist and then, one more question to try to understand some of the context in which you live.

First, what exactly is the meaning of

[English]

“improve test fishing program”?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Because the information at the commission was based on a commercial fishery one day a week in area 20 and in Johnstone Strait and because there were years—1996 comes to mind—when there was no fishing because of a conservation concern over the stocks, the people involved at that level, at the panel or at the commission, came up with a plan to increase test fishing. Instead of having one boat in Juan de Fuca and two boats in Johnstone Strait, they may have gone for two or three boats in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and maybe four, five, or six in Johnstone Strait to try to replace having a fishery.

• 1804

In one sense that's good because it may give you information, but it'll take a long timeline to build that information up. In another sense, from the fisherman's perspective, it's not so good because you're going to have a half-dozen guys test fishing and making a living while the rest of us are sitting back.

The best thing would be if we had a fishery, and I'll give you an example from this year, when we fished the first opening and we caught—between Juan de Fuca and Johnstone Strait—approximately 75,000 sockeye for the entire seine fleet. The run size was supposed to be about six million in order to have a further fishery, but it was immediately downgraded to approximately five million, and no fishery was scheduled.

Now, if you had scheduled a fishery for the following week and the run size really was five million, we might have caught another 75,000 fish, maybe less, in which case there would have been fewer fish than your ability to measure. The department couldn't even measure to that fine a tolerance. The effect on the on-ground spawn would have been nothing. When you get five million fish spread among a couple of systems and you take 75,000 fewer than that, that doesn't mean anything. Yet if we had fished and had caught more fish, that might have given them the information they needed to say that the run size was six million, in which case the area gillnetters might have fished and we might have had a further opening.

Where we're at right now is that you can't fish because all our information is based on a fishery, and you can't have the fishery because you don't have the information. It's a catch-22. The idea of the increased testing was to try to get more boats into the water to give them more information, but it would take a while to develop that information, and it's not entirely accepted by different groups.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: You referred to the fact that you met an American who was able to fish for salmon in the Fraser.

I would like to return to the question I asked your colleague who preceded you. Do you think or is it possible that there is perhaps something going on between the Canadian government and the American government that has led to decisions being made that would benefit the Americans by preventing you from fishing because there is some sort of quid pro quo being tried out with the Americans? Although it is salmon you are after, should we be checking to see if things are fishy in some other sense? One never knows.

[English]

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: No, I wouldn't think that. I think the main advantage that accrues from that type of thing is to the in-river fisheries. I don't think it's an international conspiracy. I think the reason the Americans fished was that they are allocated a percentage of that run over a period of time, if I'm correct, and they were scheduled to take the fish. They fished before we did on this run. I think they had their opening before we actually started fishing, and they caught a fair amount of fish. So no, I don't think that would be correct.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Today is November 19. You were prevented from fishing during the month of August and you had started to get ready in March. What did you do between the beginning of August, when you were prevented from fishing, and November 19? I listen to the news every day. CBC broadcasts it from Toronto and Radio-Canada from Montreal.

• 1809

How did you get this news before November 19 and found out what was happening to you? What did you do? Did you lobby anyone? Did you go to the Minister's office? He is from your riding. The Minister is here, in your region. Did no one stop his limousine to talk to him and to ask him if he was aware of what was going on? Did you do anything?

[English]

An hon. member: Good question.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: I personally speak about what I did personally. I was supposed to conduct a test during that fishery in San Juan or Juan de Fuca, and in fact I had some of the equipment on the boat during the fishery. I left to go back to do the tests even though it was closed. I was turned back when I was partway there because they said there weren't enough fish for them to pay me to do the test. I went home and I waited for one more day, and then because I was multiple-licensed, I took off my gear for area 20, I put my northern nets on, and I left for the north. I ran back to my other area and proceeded to fish there until September, when they closed there. Then I came home.

I spent a fair amount of time working on the Herring Industry Advisory Board after that at the research council. Then, to put it honestly to you, I've been depressed to the point where I've wanted to get away from fishing, and I haven't been in contact with anybody. I just withdrew from it because I was burnt out. I spent six uncomfortable months at it because we were trying to get people to do something they weren't of a mind to do. There was no reward at the end of it.

I just spent five hard years of trying to survive in this fishery to where I could...I'm getting near retirement age. All of a sudden I see my retirement assets are worth nothing. Maybe I'm not going to be able to fish, or maybe I'm going to have to fish even when I'm 70 years old. I'm going to have to keep scratching because the assets are worth nothing and I can't sell them.

What did I do? Basically, I just walked away from it for two or three months because I needed to do that on a personal level.

Is it news? We protested here at various times. Do you want us to go down and burn the tower down on Hasting Street? That might be news. But as to going down and telling them we're not fishing, I don't think it would be looked at. We've been marginalized by accepting...and this is coming from somebody who advocated or thought that fleet reduction was a good thing.

Really, it was a good thing, but we've marginalized the industry. It's not like the east, where the majority of the people in the small communities are fishermen. We don't have any of those left. The fleet is so small now that we're not fishing, and it's not really big news. There's your answer.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Could we try to keep the answers and the questions a bit shorter? Our next witness is strapped for time as well.

Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I'll do my best, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your evidence.

I'm trying to get a handle on comparing apples to apples, and I wonder if you could help me. I think this project you were involved in was a great effort. It's too bad you didn't feel that you got something out of it. It seemed like a good way of working with DFO, and I want to congratulate you for at least trying.

I just want to ask a couple of questions about this. You indicated 45,965 sockeye on page 21 of your report. Is that for both days?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: That's the total for both days.

Mr. Tom Wappel: In Mr. Eidsvik's presentation, he is talking about the aboriginal seine fishery on the Fraser. He says “vessels fished at the mouth of the Fraser and in San Juan de Fuca”. Is that the same place you were fishing in this part that you're talking about?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Yes, I think there were four or five—

Mr. Tom Wappel: You told us that. I just want to make sure I'm talking apples and apples, because according to what he said, DFO gave six vessels 30 days to fish for 80,000 pieces in the same area you had seven hours for 73 vessels to fish for 46,000 pieces. Am I right?

• 1814

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: I can get where you're going. How come they caught 80,000 and we caught 45,000?

Mr. Tom Wappel: For the time being I'm going to assume they caught more because that's the evidence that seems to be going around. That's what they were allocated, and let's assume they caught what they were allocated. That is 13,330 pieces per vessel, and you had 629 pieces per vessel.

• 1819

Now, assuming for a moment that it was conservation, so that the total DFO was talking about would have been the 80,000 plus the 46,000—that's 126,000—if we're talking conservation, if they only wanted everybody in the same industry to catch 126,000 in the month of August, and they decided that for the sake of conservation that's how much you could catch, and they divided it into 46,000 for you and 80,000 for the aboriginal fishery, was there any explanation for that?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: No, it wouldn't have been done that way. They were fishing long before we got there.

Mr. Tom Wappel: According to this they started on August 1. You started on August 5.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Okay, August 1. That's before we got there and they fished after we left. There would be no connection between putting the two together and saying—

Mr. Tom Wappel: Why not? If you're talking about conservation, if you're worried about overfishing the fish, there's a certain number of fish that DFO would allow you to fish.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: The only thing I can say to you about that is that the department treats conservation in two different ways, as far as I know. There's a level at which they'll stop commercial guys from fishing, and then there's a secondary level at which they'll stop fish that would be considered to be section 35 food fish. In other words, the level of conservation for those people would have to be—

Mr. Tom Wappel: Oh, but come on, 13,000 pieces per vessel for food and ceremony as opposed to 629 per vessel when you were out there.... They can't possibly make that case.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: But they do.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Well, we'll see about that.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: In addition, 80,000 is the number that's allocated to them, but they fish every day of the week. The difference between them fishing there and us fishing there, as we explained to you, is that we were fishing under really, really strict conditions. We had to ask permission to set until they turned us loose at one o'clock on the last day. We had to ask permission to put the net in the water, and until they gave you permission, you couldn't set.

• 1824

They are actually fishing. When they go there they just go fishing. They start at six in the morning and they're fishing. They could make 12 sets a day.

Mr. Tom Wappel: In his presentation, he estimated 500,000 sockeye. But for the purposes of the point I'm trying to make, even if it's 80,000, I can't see how it's allocated if they're worried about conservation. If conservation is not a problem, then they're doing something else.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: They handle conservation at two different levels, as far as I know. The level of conservation for the commercial fleet is here, and when we reach there we stop. And the level for stopping an aboriginal or a section 35 fishery would be when the run would be ready to become virtually extinct. At that point they would stop that fishery. But they wouldn't stop it at the same time.... It's obvious. They kept fishing in the river. After they stopped us, they kept fishing. So there are two ways of dealing with conservation.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Thank you, sir. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Mr. Stoffer.

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

Thank you for your presentation. On page 25 it says you can only conclude that the destruction of the public commercial salmon fishery is DFO's objective. You're talking about the commercial salmon fishery. You're not discriminating between aboriginal commercial fishery or non-aboriginal commercial fishery. Mr. Eidsvik said there are—

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: I'm suggesting that the only fishery that isn't fishing is the all-citizens commercial fishery.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay. I guess my question to you... You said you were there for 39 years.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Yes.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Why would you make that statement, and why do you think DFO's objective is to destroy or get rid of the all-citizens commercial salmon fishery, as you said? Why, in your experience, do you think they're doing it? There has to be a reason.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: If you were a total cynic—

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Which I am.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Not that I am, but if you were.... Let's use the recent Nisga'a Treaty as an example. The department did some pre-treaty forecasting into what it would cost to do mitigation, to buy out licences, and found out that they were way off the mark with how much money they needed. I was part of the process of how they resolved that issue. We kept telling them they were not compensating enough in the number of pieces of fish per boat. They were way off the mark. They made the comment that they were out of money because they had only allocated so much money to compensate for this treaty and it was all gone. They wanted to know what they were going to buy the rest of them with. Our answer was, “We don't really care. You made a mistake; you underestimated.”

Given that they're going to make lots more treaties down the road, if you were a cynic you would probably think that if they can drive the fishing fleet into bankruptcy, they'll get the compensation for a hell of a lot less money—if you were a cynic.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

You also indicated in the beginning of your presentation that a person from Parks, for example, ends up in Fisheries. You say there's a big difference between management of Parks and Fisheries. Of course, you're absolutely right. Would you say that some of the problems in DFO on the west coast are purely—and I say this with respect—out of ignorance and total lack of experience? How many DFO people that you deal with have 39 years of experience, as you have?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: Not very many.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Not very many.

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: And even when I say the system is broken, for even the ones who have been there for a long time it's easier for them not to have a fishery. If you don't have a fishery and no fish show up on the spawning grounds, hey, it's nature. But if I have a fishery and perhaps a little less escapement, then it's my fault.

We've slowly slid into this situation, I think, where even line managers who maybe know better don't really want to buck the system and go fishing.

I'll give you an example. When we started selected fishing, we were going to conduct an extensive series of tests by gillnetters and seiners in Barkley Sound. We were told by the area manager that there weren't enough fish in Barkley Sound to conduct the test. He said it wasn't possible, we were going to damage the run. Well, go have a look at the statistics on what we caught in seven days of testing in Barkley Sound. It was phenomenal. And yet here's a line manager saying there are no fish there and you are not to fish.

• 1829

I do not think the department has a grand plan at the lower-operational level to do away with fishing. Going further up the ladder and taking into consideration treaties and everything else, I might think a little differently about this. But I really do believe we have boxed ourselves in, over a period of time, with incremental changes that have come about for various reasons, such as being 24 hours from disaster if a certain fleet is put in the water.

The cod crisis happened on the east coast and it scared everybody. People who knew what they were doing left. The aboriginal fishing strategy and the whole question of aboriginal fisheries has made it so uncomfortable that management people at all levels are looking at and counting—counting!—the days they have left to retirement so they can get the hell out of the system, because it's not a system they want to be in any more. And these things, cumulatively wrapped up into a system, mean that it's broken—it doesn't work. It just doesn't work.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Rezansoff.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Mr. Rezansoff. I do appreciate your submission today.

I have a comment before you go. This fisheries' management situation reminds of the old adage about how a good banker will have a few bad loans. A good fisheries' manager will make the odd mistake. Most likely they're not going to be fatal to any particular run, but you may get slightly fewer numbers on the spawning grounds than you want. This isn't the end of the world.

Isn't this what you're trying to tell us here?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: I'll use the words of our executive director at the herring...and he has used it at the salmon...when we were trying to set up this fishery in Juan de Fuca. Here's a man who has a plaque from the department for his exemplary management throughout his years there. He put into place a management system that's recognized all over the world.

He looked at the people there now and he said, “Gentlemen, this is not a potato patch; you can't plant potatoes here in a nice neat row and then pull them out by the tail.” There are risks involved in managing a fishery. No matter what you do there are risks. And right now we have a department totally unwilling to accept risks.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): One quick question, Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: If I could, because the minister has shown that if he's given the science and the encouragement of the bureaucrats.... We've certainly seen it on the east coast in the snow crab fishery. Increased allocations have been made there. In the general sense of what is being presented here today...decisions are being made on the information he's receiving.

I commend your group on the management plan. You thought outside the box and you took risks. What's taken place since the season closed? Has the group met with DFO again? Have the recommendations come forward, and what has the response been?

Mr. Frank Rezansoff: No, we haven't had any meetings with them since then.

A subset of the group that put this plan together has met with department officials. In talking with them, they said they were hoping to work in cooperation to set up a fishing plan for the coming year, but they were going to go ahead with or without the department. They were going to approach it in a different way; they were going to develop a fishing plan, and if the department didn't adhere to the fishing plan they were going to go fishing regardless.

I think this shows you the desperation of the people involved. They are absolutely at the end of their rope. They see no ability to carry on beyond maybe another year or two. For a fishing community that, by and large, in all the years I've fished, has been relatively honest and law-abiding, and can only really be subject to enforcement because they are...to suggest they're going to go fishing regardless has to be at a level of desperation that the department must recognize.

• 1834

Have we met the vessel owners in particular? No, and I suppose we've been remiss in not doing this, in not looking at the whole thing, but I didn't see any value in looking at it.

I've been working internally with our group trying to put together some ideas on how best to approach the question of looking at what's wrong with the management system, how to approach this whole question with the department. We're about halfway there in trying to put together a submission to try to work something out. The first thing you have to do is get some indication that those people in charge are willing to look at themselves and recognize that something is wrong. I'm not sure we've had this.

A lot of people at the line level, the day-to-day, hands-on management, during the fishery recognize something is wrong, but they're not the people who make the decisions. At the ministerial or the RDG level, I'm not so sure there is a recognition that the system is broken.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Mr. Rezansoff, for what was simply an outstanding presentation.

The next witness will be John Radosevic from the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union. While John is approaching, I'll bring this to your attention, Mr. Stoffer.

A number of years ago we had some senior management witnesses from the DFO before the committee in Ottawa. At that time I simply asked each of them how long they had been with the department. These were, as I said, senior managers. The current minister was there and some of the senior advisers. All of their answers were the same: it was six months here, a year and a half there, this type of thing. The only individual who had been with the department any length of time was the scientist, and he had been there 29 years.

But those were the people who were making the decisions in the department. They simply had no experience in the department. They had not come up through the ranks; they'd come from elsewhere.

A voice: Are you talking about the ones in Ottawa or on the west coast?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): This was in Ottawa, but the decisions made here are vetted there, and that's a problem.

A voice: It's a valid point.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): I see, Mr. Radosevic, you have Mr. Sutcliffe with you.

Mr. John Radosevic (President, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union): Yes, there really are two of us. You're not seeing double, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Good.

Mr. John Radosevic: I want to begin by thanking the committee for taking the time. With me is John Sutcliffe. John is the vice-president of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union, the CAW, and I'm the president of this organization.

I want to keep my remarks brief. If there are questions, that's fine, but I think speakers from the industry have probably done an admirable job of filling in the details of this season and what happened around the fisheries this year.

The union's position has been widely reported since the inception of the AFS pilot sales program. It's clear we do not support the pilot sales component of the aboriginal fisheries strategy. We believe the purpose of this strategy is to relieve the federal government of certain obligations it has associated with land claims and to do so on the backs of one segment of society, namely the commercial fishing industry and the people who have to depend on it for livelihood.

It's an ill-conceived plan because it works only marginally in terms of serving the interests of first nations people, but it does so at huge cost to the people in the commercial fishing industry, including commercial aboriginal fishermen. It also does so at a cost to the fish because this fishery undermines or jeopardizes conservation—as I'm sure you've heard from some of the previous speakers.

I appreciate the committee coming out here. This is an important issue. I would just like to remind the committee—perhaps, some of you will remember if you were on the committee then—that the last time this committee heard from us on this subject was in Ottawa. I was accompanied by 11 chiefs and representatives of aboriginal bands and first nations. Virtually every major band north of Campbell River was represented by that group and supported by Phil Fontaine, at the time the Grand Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

• 1839

We were in Ottawa to tell the standing committee and whoever else would listen—we had a number of meetings elsewhere as well—that the pilot sales program was a mess. It was contributing to poverty in the coastal communities and north of the Campbell River, especially in aboriginal coastal communities. It was contributing to racial tensions. It was deeply flawed, primarily because of problems associated with the priority of the fishery, as well as monitoring.

It's still a mess. It's still contributing to poverty and economic disparity in both aboriginal and non-aboriginal coastal communities. It is still deeply flawed in the areas to do with priority and monitoring.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you, Mr. Radosevic.

Do you have some remarks, Mr. Sutcliffe?

Mr. John Sutcliffe (Vice-President, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union): Yes. I'm glad I arrived in time to hear at least part of Bob's presentation. We actually spent the afternoon at DFO going over some issues.

One of the things I want to do is ascertain the forgone catch coast-wide this year in the fishery. Some of this will touch directly on the issue of pilot sales fisheries.

I wasn't expecting to get confirmation, but I said I thought close to 20 million salmon on the coast of British Columbia this year were left in the water, which were entirely surplus to even optimum spawning goals. That's more than double the catch, which was at around six million—unprecedented mismanagement of our fisheries. Little to my surprise, the response from a senior manager who was attending this meeting this afternoon was, “At least 20 million, John”.

Another quantification you probably heard today, and just in case you haven't, is that this season in excess of 30 million pink, sockeye, and chum salmon returned to the Fraser River. There was a commercial catch of only 1.5 million. There were only three years in the last century when escapements of that size occurred. Never has there been such a small catch. In general terms, I hope that can quantify the level of mismanagement. We might as well call it precisely what it is.

There are a whole number of issues affecting that, and I'm not going to directly address the issue of pilot sales. I looked at some of the material, and it has been very well covered. But I want to make a general comment on DFO and the collapse of the northern cod stocks—the 24 hours or 12 hours from disaster, I can't remember—

A voice: The actual quote was, “one 12-hour fishery from disaster on the Adams River run”.

Mr. John Sutcliffe: I think that resonated in this country after the cod collapse in about the same way.

One of my colleagues pointed out, at the meeting where John Fraser made those comments, what does 12 hours from disaster mean when you're managing a fishery? Driving up the island highway at 120 klicks to come to this meeting and passing a guy coming down the other way at 120 klicks, I'm a fraction of a microsecond from death. It happens all the time when you're driving. So what does it mean to say 12 hours from disaster? There are rules. There are risks. You live with them and they work. In managing a fishery, 12 hours from disaster has about the same meaning as a microsecond from death every time you pass somebody on a highway.

That's a bit of a diversion. DFO, particularly since Anderson's plan, has moved increasingly, because of those events and because of a growing public interest in our resource, to an extreme form of risk management.

• 1844

At the same time, the resource instability has perhaps been more acute than at any other time in history. In the context of this extreme risk management regime that the department is on, the pilot sales fishery, particularly in the Fraser, increases the level of uncertainty that the department has to manage.

Even in a year where there are 6.5 million sockeye, and probably 2.5 million, even by today's fairly high escapement level goals, could have been harvested, the risks of allowing a harvest, even on such a substantial available TAC, when you have uncertainties about the river harvest, in addition to other uncertainties—and you probably heard about the late mortality problem and so on—just get too high for the department to bear.

It launches a vicious cycle. They don't have a fisheries, so then they become even less certain. Historically, the department and the salmon commission, as people who are familiar with that process will know, have always relied on fisheries to determine in-season abundances. In the absence of fisheries they have only test fisheries, and a much higher level of uncertainty. Jim Woodey, the senior biologist attached to the Fraser panel, will be the first to explain that in recent years, in the absence of fisheries, their level of uncertainty in-season increases substantially.

So there are a whole number of contributing factors and they work on each other. So with the increased uncertainty they have without fisheries, and the increased uncertainty around numbers taken in pilot sales fishery, the intention to have fisheries is lowered, and then of course uncertainty becomes greater and it's a completely untenable management regime.

Those are very brief comments, but I want to make them. There have been many problems since 1996, ably described by previous witnesses. But this year is really qualitatively different from anything else. This year the resource came back. It was masked at first, a little bit, because the Fraser sockeye run, which we expected would be 12 million or more fish, and a good return, didn't happen. But just about every other stock on the coast came back strongly. There are weak stock issues, but the major runs of interest to the commercial fleet produced huge abundances, probably at or near the average levels of the seventies, eighties, and nineties. That's the 20-million foregone harvest this year.

It's different this year. The new rules—conservation rules, allocation rules, wild salmon rules, selectivity rules—that DFO has developed with a helter-skelter process didn't really show up for the implementation problem until this year because there really weren't significant abundances available for harvest. But this year we see just how incredibly inept the managers are and the incredible difficulty they have implementing those rules, howsoever valid they might be. I would certainly challenge the validity of many of them.

So it's a very different situation. Fishermen see this year that even when the fish are there they will not fish.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much.

Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks, gentlemen, for coming out and presenting that. We did two west coast reports a few years ago where we discussed the pilot sales and asked them for a review of that program. I take it that as far as you're concerned, there has been no review of the program at all in terms of pilot sales. This is what the all-party committee recommended unanimously in two reports a couple of years ago, and obviously that hasn't happened. Is that correct?

• 1849

An hon. member: That's correct.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: In your opinion, gentlemen, what would it take to stop the pilot sales program? Everyone has a big problem with it. And not just yourselves, but you mentioned coastal communities and aboriginal groups. What would it take to stop it?

An hon. member: I think there were two issues that we identified as key. It's more complex than this, I appreciate, but there are two key issues. One is the issue of priority and one is the issue of monitoring.

• 1854

If there are to be commercial sales of this nature, at the very least there ought not to be any priorities. So simultaneous openings and simultaneous or similar triggering mechanisms for fisheries would at least relieve some of the problems that are associated with those fisheries being front-end-loaded and preventing other fisheries from taking place in a timely way.

Monitoring is the other issue that has been identified. If there were proper monitoring of these fisheries, it would go a long way to relieve some of the angst around these fisheries.

An hon. member: The industry has had a problem for years with regard to interim measures. If the Government of Canada, in its wisdom, determines these measures to be appropriate, the way to do it would be through what we used to call “the industrial solution”. We don't hear it referred to very much, although I think it's the approach on the east coast, following Marshall. It has certain problems with inflating licence values, but I don't think fishermen in general would have a complaint about that.

There's a way of taking vessels, transferring licence and vessel to people who the Government of Canada might choose to give access to the fishery. That basically puts people on an equal footing and doesn't reallocate fish out of the commercial fishery, or set up a different commercial fishery, or any of those things.

As a historical note of interest, the industrial solution was not something the UFAWU, or the survival coalition, or anybody else designed and wrote up. It was a document produced by the Native Brotherhood of British Columbia.

• 1859

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

I had a conversation with a couple of fishermen on the west coast three days ago. We were coming out for the hearings, and I just wanted to get a feel for what they were thinking about. It appeared, in the mind of one of them anyway—and it's the same as what we've read in the documents. The perception is that DFO wants to get rid of the commercial fishery. So I asked him, if that's true, why would they do it? What's the reason?

No one's really told me now why that is, but he suspected—and it's purely speculation on his part—that if we could get rid of the commercial fishery, it would make room for the aquaculture industry.

I'd like your comment on that.

An hon. member: I'm not laughing at the question, and it's not a funny situation. I don't really have a comment on it, other than to say that whether the department is doing it accidentally or it's doing it on purpose, the result is the same, and it's unacceptable. It's the wrong thing. I can't get into the minds of the policy-makers in Ottawa, but I can tell you the policies the department is coming out with are destructive in the extreme.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

We know what happened this year and how bad it's been. What about next year? What is the anticipated run for next year? Are there any indications at all? If it's as high as what we have now, or close to it, will there be an opportunity for the government to realize what they've done wrong this year and allow the fishermen to fish next year?

An hon. member: Well, we plan to give them that opportunity.

For the Fraser, the forecast run, at the 50% probability level, is almost precisely the same as it was for this year—12.5 million. A certain portion of that, about 3.5 million, is late-run stocks—the famous Adams River runs, which they suspect are plagued with the problem of early entry into the river. The late stocks have a pre-spawn mortality rate; they enter the river early.

There's an interesting issue there. The parasite that is blamed for that is a rare one. It was identified in the Fraser River only three years ago, and the only previous record of that parasite occurred in a coho fish farm in Puget Sound. DFO is very anxious to deny there's any linkage, and there may not be. But the only other and prior record of this parasite that is confounding our fisheries, especially when they're co-migrating with late stocks, comes from the aquaculture industry.

At any rate, there are some serious problems for next year. There is no doubt about it. Some of them are real and need to be addressed, but with the managers' decision rules, as they call them, if there isn't a change, it's very unlikely there'll be a harvest. When I started fishing in the 1970s, a run of 6 million or 8 million was a big run, and we did well. I raised a family trolling on salmon alone. Anybody who's entered the industry in the last 10 years would find that impossible to believe.

The run sizes were no larger than they were this year. A 6.5 million to 8 million Fraser River sockeye run size in the 1970s was a bonanza year, and, as I think Bob said in reference to the escapement and the rebuilding program that was in place then, which produced those huge runs of 18 million to 20 million, record runs, there was nothing wrong with those escapements. We got to where we needed to be. We're putting two to three times the amount of fish on the spawning grounds now and having very poor returns.

There's a high correlation between over-escapement and poor return, particularly for sockeye. Every major over-escapement event since 1956 has resulted in a near collapse in the Skeena, in Rivers Inlet, and in the Fraser River. But our managers go on dumping more and more fish on the spawning grounds.

• 1904

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Are there any other questions from the committee?

Thank you very much, gentlemen, for the presentation. It was very informative. I appreciate that.

The next presenter is Richard Nomura. Richard is a gillnetter who lives in Ladner and keeps his boat over here in Richmond.

Richard.

Mr. Richard Nomura (Individual Presentation): Hello. I come from a fishing family. My three brothers fish and so did my father. We all fish basically in the Fraser River system, catching Fraser River sockeye.

I'd like to thank you for giving me this opportunity to express some of my concerns as to what's happened to my livelihood in the last few years.

As you're aware, we had a return of six million sockeye to the Fraser River this year, and we weren't given any opportunity to fish. Over the past three years, I've had two and a half days to try to make a living harvesting Fraser River sockeye. I don't believe you can appreciate the disappointment of not being given the opportunity to fish this year on a six-million run, especially when this run is the strongest of a four-year cycle.

I remember last year we had an AGM at an area E association meeting. A regional fishery manager came to that meeting and told us at that time, anticipating the 2001 catches, that there was a strong possibility that we might not be able to catch that much fish during the two-week period they were trying to schedule the openings. With that in mind, a lot of the fellows here sort of anticipated that and invested more heavily in their gear and in preparing their gear trying to prepare for that fishery.

DFO has countless reasons for why those opportunities were not there, but it's inexcusable that a run size of that magnitude could not produce a commercial fishery in the Fraser River.

During the time when the Mifflin plan came in, and fleet reduction, we were told that fleet reduction would produce a sustainable living and that we would benefit from the increase in harvest.

We presently have around 400 vessels in area E here, and there are times when the fleet in the river would exceed 1,000 vessels. I caught more sockeye then than I do now. The problem we face is not from a lack of fish, but rather the fairness to access to the resource.

This year I sat on the dock and watched natives in the Fraser River harvesting sockeye while we got nothing. We were informed this year that they could take some of their food fish as pilot sales, which meant there was little control over the sale of illegal food fish.

We had one of the representatives on the salmon commission inform us this year that when the run size was reduced to roughly around five million and then quickly reduced down to four million, it so happened that the allocation for their pilot sales was too large at four million. So they allowed them to move that pilot sales fish back into food fish. Later they were notified, when the run size was increased to five million, that they could move that fish back into pilot sales. So when those regulations and changes are coming in and they're flip-flopping that easily...really there is no difference between pilot sales and food fish. It's all basically the same fish.

I don't know if you know why these pilot sales and this AFS program ever started. It started I believe roughly around 1991. At that time, John Crosbie was the Minister of Fisheries. He wrote an autobiography called No Holds Barred, and in that he addresses the west coast fisheries and his term as the minister there. He writes:

DFO estimated that nearly one million salmon annually were caught and sold commercially by the Natives of British Columbia. ... Massive military-style patrols of the three vast river systems in British Columbia would be necessary if we were to stop the illegal sale of the salmon by Natives. That was obviously neither desirable nor possible. By legalizing it, we would have some control over the management of the fishery.

• 1909

That's the reason we have the AFS program, and that's also why we have the pilot sales, which is a component of the AFS program. Basically, what he was saying was if you rob a bank...perhaps we should legalize it so at least we know who's robbing it and where that money is going.

He said:

A long delay in obtaining the cabinet approval of our aboriginal strategy caused difficulties in enforcement in 1992.

So the summer after that...

...100,000 Fraser River sockeye salmon were reported to have failed to reach the counting stations on their journey up the river system.

That means they counted fish up to Mission. They do acoustic sounding to find out how much or how big the run size is at that point. At that point there is no fishery. The only fishery that exists beyond that point is a native fishery. So from our perspective as harvesters, if we can get them to Mission, we've done our job, or we've done as much as we can. It's out of our hands. But at that time, as he said, in 1992, 100,000 fish went missing from that point at Mission to the spawning ground.

He goes on to say:

As soon as I heard of this, I ordered an internal DFO investigation. My deputy minister, Bruce Rawson, gave me a choice. I could try to stop the loss of these salmon by increasing enforcement, or I could close the Fraser River system completely.... The next day, I ordered a complete closure of the Fraser River fishery.

In other words, even a year after bringing in the program it seemed to be doomed to failure.

We were also told that the pilot sales program, since it was a commercial fishery, would be treated like a fourth gear type and have no priority over other years. The problem was that DFO interpreted that in the broadest possible terms and allowed pilot sales to commence as soon as there was a non-native commercial harvest of Fraser River sockeye anywhere on the coast. Although we were all managed as an area, what it did was allow the natives to leap right to the front of the line while we sat on the dock.

The problem this industry is facing today goes much deeper than increasing escapement numbers, weak stock management, and conservation. The real problem is the direction this government is taking this country and its citizens. They are trying to solve social and economic problems by displacing an industry and transferring those privileges to a preferred group of people. I believe all Canadians are sympathetic to the plight of others, but solutions have to take into account the rights of others and to find solutions in a framework that all Canadians can work under. Insulating and isolating does nothing but reinforce the problems we have today.

My parents were born here many years ago, and my father made a living here on the Fraser River. We did, too, his sons. When the war broke out, they realized they were not good enough to be just Canadians, that there was a certain kind of Canadian. Their rights of ownership and freedom were taken away. They were sent back to Alberta, to work as migrant farm workers during some very difficult times. When that war ended, they returned to take their livelihood back and to rebuild their lives. They knew what it meant to be a second-class citizen.

Later, in 1989, my family received redress and an apology from the Government of Canada, and I believe you have a copy of that. In it there's an acknowledgment of the failure of the Government of Canada to its people, to the Japanese people. The first line reads:

As a people, Canadians commit themselves to the creation of a society that ensures equality and justice for all, regardless of race or ethnic origin.

• 1914

That apology meant to them more than anything, because it finally recognized the fact that they were Canadians. They were born here, yet they hadn't been recognized as Canadians. Here I am today in an industry...and I feel as if I'm not a Canadian either. In some respects, I don't have the rights some other groups have. I don't resent the fact that this government is trying to give the natives a greater presence in harvesting the resource, but if it means taking away from one and giving to the others, with no regard to impact and fairness, it's totally criminal. This government should be ashamed to say that it represents all Canadians.

We all realize that a transition is happening in this industry, but there must be a fair and equitable way I can still make a viable living. Everyone knows that we're getting the short end of the stick here. You know it, the public knows it, and so do the natives. Yet the people who can do something about it are sitting back and letting it happen.

I would like to know who is standing up for my rights as a Canadian. I hope you and this government take a long, hard look at what's happening to us here, because you're here to represent Canadians and to make sure that our rights and equality are ensured. All I want is to be treated equally.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Richard.

Are there any questions? James.

Mr. James Lunney: Mr. Nomura, thank you for your contribution to this hearing.

You gave, I think, an interesting slant to the program, one that adds a little different depth than we've heard so far. You mentioned your own parents and the experience they had in feeling less Canadian because of what happened during the Second World War and of being shipped to Alberta. Your parents, I believe you said, were born here in Canada.

Mr. Richard Nomura: That's right. They were Canadian.

Mr. James Lunney: Would you mind stating for the record where your grandparents came from?

Mr. Richard Nomura: They came from Japan.

Mr. James Lunney: And now we hear you mention that as a commercial fishermen who has grown up in this area and whose parents had actually earned a living fishing on the river—

Mr. Richard Nomura: Exactly, yes.

Mr. James Lunney: You were young, presumably.

Mr. Richard Nomura: They were part of the community here. Actually, we're standing in the presence of the Japanese community here. There was a large Japanese community here in Steveston, and there still is. You can still see a lot of the culture here. It's becoming very multicultural now, but originally a lot was basically Japanese here.

Mr. James Lunney: Exactly. And of course we recognize that Canada is made up of people of multiethnic backgrounds. For most of us, if you scratch and go back a little, our ancestors came from somewhere else.

Yet your refer to your own experience here now, sitting on the docks and being unable to fish today, while others are allowed to go out and fish because of a different racial or ethnic background.

Mr. Richard Nomura: What has happened is that the whole nature of the fishery has changed. We grew up in Steveston. I presently live in Ladner, although, as I tell my friends, I sleep in Ladner but I live in Steveston. Anyway, what happened was that when we were kids—and even to this day—we had a lot of friends who were native and we all fished together. That was the nature of the industry. Everybody fished together. What happened was that slowly, as changes came and directions changed as to where the government was going in regulating the fisheries, a lot of the natives, our friends, who held commercial licences decided to sell their licences because they felt that they were going to be given licences. So when you look in the Fraser River system, there aren't very many commercial native fishermen now, because they've opted not to retain their licences. They've cashed them in, knowing that they would get a free licence and the privileges attached to that.

It's quite different, actually, with respect to the northern fleet. If you look up there, a large portion of that northern commercial fleet is native because they're still fishermen. And as I said, here, with the Sparrow case and stuff they've opted to go the other route and actually try to separate the fisheries.

• 1919

Mr. James Lunney: I think you've indicated that you as a Canadian of second and third generation now feel less than a full Canadian because your rights are being taken away.

Mr. Richard Nomura: That's right. Like I said, I'm in a position now whereby opportunities to access this resource are racially based, and what happens is that with all the regulations we're finding it's come to the point where natives are now into agreements on the fish—in other words, contracts—and those fish have to be delivered.

From our perspective, we have management plans, so what happens is those things are flexible. They're flexible to the extent that we don't fish on a six million run. As I said, my father would be rolling in his grave if he knew we wouldn't be fishing here in the Fraser. Fishing in the Fraser River is as sure as the sun is going to come up every morning, and it's inconceivable that on a six million run we can't fish.

As I mentioned earlier, no one wants to talk about it, but we fear that we'll never fish here again. If we can't fish on the six million, when are we going to fish?

The point is that with the structure of the fisheries and how the natives have gone into agreements, we're sitting in a position where, because of those things and the complication of delivering those commitments because the fishery is so complex, if we fish, it triggers so many other factions of the fishery that we can't get in the water. It's plain and simple: it's just too complicated, and we know that the only people who are going to get in the water are the aboriginals.

I heard you talk to Bob earlier about conservation. The point is that they can fish to a sustainable number—in other words, they can fish a run for food to a point where that run will survive, and that's it. In other words, they fish right to the bone, to the marrow. In our industry we have to fish to not only a sustainable number but also a rebuilding factor, and we can't go below that. But they can, and that's the difference. So if they keep fishing it right down to the marrow, we'll never get in the water.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you.

I think we all want to see everyone treated fairly, and with regard to redress for aboriginals and so on we'd like to see them do well on the community. And I think we've heard other witnesses indicate that there's a place for food, that nobody would argue with that. But surely, as Canadians, we can do better than race-based allocations of our resources, which anywhere else in the world would probably be called racism.

Mr. Richard Nomura: There have been injustices done, and surely as Canadians we can all come to some kind of an agreement we can all live with. I don't think it's hard to get there; it's just that if the political will is not there we're not going to do it.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Peter.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you for your presentation.

I must say, as a kid growing up, watching all my Japanese friends come in with their boats and helping them unload, and then getting a salmon to take home to my dad, it was a neat thing to do.

I wanted to say that if we had separated the Japanese fleet from the white fleet in the 1960s and 1970s there would have been a huge uproar. Right now, we seem to have a separate fishery, as you're saying. And we used to have a separate—

Mr. Richard Nomura: It's quite interesting you bring that up, because we have friends who are aboriginals too, and I remember one of my native friend's daughter coming over to our house one day and playing with our kids, and she said to me, “Why don't you guys have a Japanese fishery? We have a native fishery.” She was only eight or nine at the time. It was a cute comment, but I didn't think an answer would clarify things at that point. But that's the perception.

• 1924

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Are you saying that in reality, if you don't fish next year, if we have a similar run next year and if you're not allowed to go fishing, that's basically it for you or for the over 400 vessels in the area now?

Mr. Richard Nomura: Right, that's the number actually fishing in the Fraser.

In recent years we've had problems where they've explained that it's been environmental and things have happened to fish, like warm waters and high mortality. With those, even DFO said they were phenomena that hadn't happened before. Our fish were starting to, for some reason, come into the river system and not stay in the gulf and go through the salinic change and then head up. They were going directly going up, and dying quicker, and stuff like that.

• 1929

All those things involved have changed. I think we're in a position where the government can put in regulations and stop us, but they can't stop the aboriginals. That's a fact. As an example, there was the Stó:lo Band this year: they continued to fish. They went to what I believe they called a non-confrontational enforcement where they would just observe and record. To be quite honest, I don't think they probably believed they were doing anything wrong, because there probably were enough fish.

They have the will, and they have the power to be able to do that, whereas we can't. We won't. On some occasions we protested, but that's what we have to do. We have to go out and actually break the law to try to get a fishery. But like I said, from the aboriginal point of view, they seem to have some kind of leniency on their part with enforcement that allows them to be able to go after the stocks.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: There are two final things. First, with Richard's permission, I'm going to take a copy of this and hand it to Mr. Davis tomorrow and ask him to respond accordingly, if you don't mind.

Mr. Richard Nomura: Sure.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Secondly, if DFO is not going to listen to the commercial fishermen's concerns that we've heard here, has your organization or your group tried to work with those aboriginal groups that are fishing now to see where you can reach a compromise where together you can go to DFO and say you've worked out a plan? Has that attempt been made?

Mr. Richard Nomura: There has been an attempt to talk to some groups and to come to some kind of agreement of fairness on sharing the resource. So there was some talk, but it did break down, because they say they didn't follow the proper protocol, and that some of the fishing councils of some of the bands didn't agree with the direction or from where it came from.

The point is that my biggest concern is that things have started to actually take a direction. You've mentioned the fact that we could go to groups and try to discuss it and try to come to some kind of middle ground. I believe that the ball is rolling downhill. From our perspective, the natives have nothing to lose at this point.

• 1934

There isn't a commercial fisherman here who wouldn't trade their licence today to have the privileges of an aboriginal. They call this a sunset industry for commercial fishermen. But it isn't for the aboriginals; it's a sunrise industry.

I spoke with one native some time back, and as you said, 30 years ago it wasn't good to be a native, but it's an awfully good time now. That's the direction it's going. I don't think it's from the regional perspective. I believe it's coming from a very high level. I think it's a justification of trying to right some wrongs.

We're in the position of being the lamb. The frustrating part, from my perspective, is this is a livelihood that my whole family was involved in. No one down the line ever told me I was doing an illegal act and I shouldn't be doing it.

I thought these would be my highest income years. I am at an age when I have gathered experience to be able to become a fisherman and everything else, and thought these would be the good times. All of sudden the bottom has fallen out.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you.

Are there any further questions?

Thank you very much, Richard.

The next witness was to be Mr. McKamey. He's not here. Is there a presentation on his behalf, or not?

A voice: Yes, that was Mike Forrest.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): We'll have to go with that.

The next presenter is Bruce Probert. Did he step out? He was here a minute ago.

Gary Sonnenberg, you're there. Why don't you come on up, Gary?

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg (Individual Presentation): Ladies and gentlemen, thank you.

I've been a commercial fisherman basically all my life. I've been on the boat since I was about two years old. I started fishing with my dad when I was about seven. I've basically been fishing my own boat since before I had my driver's licence.

Over the years, I've seen the good years and the bad years. I'd fish out in San Juan for three or four days a week, and rush back to fish the Fraser River. That went on for many a year. Then, for some reason, it just stopped completely, to the point where I cannot make an income off the Fraser River.

There are a lot of issues over it. I'd never had a fisheries conviction in my life. Then in 1997, I had to basically stand my ground. I fished during the protest fishery. I was charged, had my boat seized, and basically I'm still within the court system. I'm now awaiting a decision in February, I believe.

I was charged with fishing during the closed time, and we've converted it to a constitutional issue, on whether or not the AFS was constitutionally illegal. That will all be decided, hopefully, this coming year.

The AFS program they have in place is so wrong. It is racially based, and it can't continue. I can't see any reason for it. Look at it in a different way. What if you weren't allowed into the Government of Canada, into your caucus or into the main area, for the simple reason that you didn't belong to a native band, if you were not allowed to debate any issues or anything, and if it were based only on race? Would that be fair? It's the same thing in our industry. We're being segregated solely on the basis of race.

• 1939

When I was charged and I was going to court, my son—he's been fishing with me since he was four—asked, “Why are you going to court—what's the reason for it?” How do you answer that? Can you? I can't. How do you tell them you go to school...? You treat some people differently than you treat other people. It's wrong—totally wrong.

I had a conversation with a fisheries officer last week. You could call it a polite argument in a sense. He had stated, “Well, the natives have been selling their fish for so many years now that they should be allowed to do it.” I thought about that for a minute, and I said, “That kind of thinking is like me saying that I've been drinking and driving for 20 years, so I should be allowed to do it now.” It's not right. It needs to be changed, and soon.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Thank you for your testimony. I am finding what we are hearing here today extremely interesting but we still have to face reality. I recognize that everybody should be treated equally, in complete fairness, but what do you think the solution is? The aboriginals have the right to fish. This right has been recognized. How can we give them rights without taking them away from you?

[English]

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: Well, ma'am, as I said, I've fished all my life. I've fished alongside natives, Japanese, Vietnamese, Croatians, and people in every walk of life. I still fish with natives and non-natives alike, and that is the only way to do it: put everybody together in one set and fish. That's all we ask, and that's all they ask.

You've said that they have a right to fish—that's correct—and that is for food, ceremonial, and social purposes, not to sell fish. From my understanding of the Van der Peet decision, there is no aboriginal right to sell fish.

We all need to work together to find solutions for everybody—that's what we need to do.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: We are talking about their right to fish for food, for ceremonial purposes, etc. Would you give them this right at any time or only at certain times of the year? Would you have any restrictions in this area? Often, they fish at times when you do not fish, because that is part of their rights and their ceremonies.

[English]

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: Basically, they start fishing in April. It starts with the early runs of spring salmon. My father used to have a commercial spring salmon fishery on the Fraser River years and years ago, and there were concerns about the stock size. They basically said that they would not fish the spring salmon in order to rebuild the stock, which they have done, to the point where you could almost allow another commercial fishery.

• 1944

Now, I'm not denying the fact that they have a right to fish for food, ceremonial, and social purposes, but all through the summer, when I'm sitting there waiting to fish and they're constantly fishing, you can go anywhere and there are phone numbers posted. You can phone and have fish delivered to your house. The illegal sale of that fish is rampant. It's not being controlled, and that's the problem.

When you guide it under an AFS fishery or a food fishery, it all gets bunched up together. You don't know what's what, and you can't do it. It's completely impossible to control. That's the problem we've been having for years.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Cuzner.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: First, Gary, I'd like to congratulate you on kicking that habit of drinking and driving, after 20 years.

I guess we're hearing from each of the witnesses that you certainly recognize the right of the aboriginal community to take part in the fishery. I see little problem, or nobody has really voiced any concern about the government even assisting them with developing a capacity to take part in the fishery, through helping with the purchase of vessels, or whatever. It's just that if they're going to do so, they should abide by the same regulations, based on science, that reflect the underlying intent to conserve the resource, and what have you.

What year did the AFS come in?

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: In 1992.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: In 1992, and prior to that.... We're seeing something very similar on the east coast, where native groups have fished alongside non-natives for a number of years and abided by the same regulations. Now, with the Marshall decision, things are being sort of reassessed, and have caused some concern.

I don't even know if I have a question to ask, but I would just like to reiterate that you see there is a role, and you're certainly not looking at denying any access to the fishery. It should just be under similar regulations as the non-native community.

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: Pretty well. There is no reason why we can't all fish together. There is no reason at all. As soon as you start segregating things you just complicate it and pit groups of people against each other. It's wrong. I can't see the rationale for continuing a program like that. What do you get out of it? It's crazy.

Mr. Rodger Cuzner: Mr. Wappel, the point Mr. Sonnenberg raised early in his presentation about the interpretation of whether or not government had a right to fish is something you're quite familiar with. It's the issue that was brought up before the scrutiny of regulations committee these past few weeks.

Mr. Wappel has been a great friend of the west coast fishing industry, by actively taking part on that committee and making it clear that those regulations, in the view of the committee, extend the rights of the minister, or the minister is in violation.

I don't know whether you want to comment on that at all, Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: These are all legal technicalities and legal issues. I don't have the paperwork in front of me, but I do remember—and I think Phil mentioned it earlier as well—the scrutiny of regulations committee takes a look at all regulations. I have been on the scrutiny committee ever since I was first elected. I guess I would say I have been the longest-serving member of the scrutiny committee and former chair of it. We've been in constant correspondence with the minister on a variety of subjects, and this is one of them. Mr. Cummins is on the committee as well.

This has nothing to do with politics; this has to do strictly with the legalities of whether or not a regulation is or is not pursuant to the powers vested in the minister, under a particular statute. So this committee is very non-partisan. We don't look at things from a Liberal, Conservative, Alliance, or NDP point of view. We look at them generally, except maybe when the drug patent stuff came up, but that's another matter.

• 1949

We generally try to look at a regulation in a very non-partisan manner. We look at it objectively to see whether it meets certain criteria. It's a very unheralded committee, shall I say, and not very well known in the public eye. But once in a while we make some very important recommendations, and I know the committee is well respected within the bureaucracy. And of course that's absolutely critical, because the bureaucracy is here. You've mentioned five ministers of fisheries, or however many it's been over a period of seven years, but the bureaucracy is still here. And there will be another five ministers of fisheries of different parties over the next ten years, but the bureaucracy will still be here. And it isn't the minister who's appointing these people; it's the deputy minister and the assistant deputy minister.

Anyway, I'm off on a tangent. I'm sorry, Mr. Cummins. Thanks for giving me an opportunity to talk up the scrutiny committee. It's an important committee few people know about, and we take our job very seriously.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): And you are an outstanding member of that committee, Mr. Wappel. I've seen you in action. I appreciate that.

Are there further questions? Mr. Stoffer.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Sonnenberg, you aren't by chance related to Melanie in New Brunswick, are you?

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: I don't know. I do have relatives across the country. They originated in Alberta. Where they went from there, I'm not sure.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: The reason I ask is she's with the Coastal Communities Network in New Brunswick and is a very active fisherman as well.

We are going to be making recommendations to the minister for our report from this week here in British Columbia. If you were us and I were Mr. Dhaliwal right now and you could make one recommendation that would improve your life and that of your family, what would it be? What would you say to Mr. Dhaliwal right now, if he was here?

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: I'd say that the AFS is wrong. You need to have one commercial fishery for all, not based on race but based for everybody under one set of rules and regulations. That's the only way you'll be able to continue a viable commercial fishery on this coast.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Are there any further questions? Mr. Farrah.

Mr. Georges Farrah (Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, Lib.): Thank you.

You talked about illegal sales from native people and lack of control. What suggestion can you make to the government to stop that? And could you explain the concrete reality of what's happened?

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: Reality-wise, the enforcement area is undermanned. I'm not sure whether it's the direction from the people in charge; they just put blinders on and ignore it. There was a policy of “observe, record, and report”, and that was it—that's where it ended. You'd see an infraction happen, and you'd report it, and that would be the end of it. It would get reported and nothing would be done about it. That's been going on for years.

Mr. Georges Farrah: And everybody sees it?

Mr. Gary Sonnenberg: Everybody sees it. You'd see fish being sold constantly this summer, and we're sitting there on the sidelines watching it be sold. If we wanted to eat a fish, we could buy one. Where it was coming from.... We knew exactly where it was coming from. But you cannot continue like that, because it's wrong.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Gary.

The next witness will be Bruce Probert.

While Bruce is coming up, just for the information of the committee, natives represent 3% of the population in British Columbia. Prior to 1992, 30% of the participants in the commercial fishery in British Columbia were native. So they were participating in a very real way in the fishery, not only as deck hands but as vessel owners. Some of the top fishermen in British Columbia were native, it should be understood.

To add a further comment as well on the question Madame Tremblay asked of Gary, he was quite correct to note—and you should take note of it—that natives do have a right to fish, but it's to fish for food, social, and ceremonial purposes only. The issue of a commercial right was raised in Van der Peet in the Fraser River here, and natives were found not to have a commercial right to a fishery. There's no question about that; it's a very clear statement by the Supreme Court of Canada in the Van der Peet decision.

• 1954

An hon. member: John, you mentioned that prior to 1992 they made up 30% of the commercial fishery.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): It was actually better than 30%.

An hon. member: And what would it be at now? Do you know?

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): I don't know. Phil, have you got a number on that?

Mr. Phil Eidsvik: It's about 30%.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Yes. Phil says it's still 30%. They're hurting as much as anybody else, obviously, and they've got boats, licences....

Another quick point while we're at it is that these gillnet vessels or the troll vessels, for you who are from the east coast, are equivalent to a lobster boat. Their earning potential would be about the same. When the licence buy-back was held here on the west coast, the government started out paying about $40,000 and they bought your licence only. In the end they were paying about $80,000 for a gillnet licence or a troll licence. You kept the boat; you kept the gear. So now you've got a boat that's yours to try to do something with. Nobody wanted them, and people had quite a hardship with that.

Comparatively, on the east coast, the government went in and bought the lobster boats. They bought the boat, the licence, and the gear and were paying in the neighbourhood of $400,000 to $450,000. So there's quite a discrepancy in the buy-out on the east coast as opposed to the west coast—a huge discrepancy.

The next witness is Mr. Bruce Probert. Bruce was before the committee about a year ago—was it two years ago?—in Ottawa. Bruce, the floor is yours.

Mr. Bruce Probert (Member, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union; Director, B.C. Council of Fish Harvesters): Hi. I'd like to thank everybody for showing up. Good evening. I know it's a long flight to the west coast, so I appreciate your making the effort to come and hear our concerns.

The handout in front of you is just notes from when I appeared in front of the standing committee in November of 1999. I only found out last night about this committee meeting and I just wanted to give you a copy of some of the comments I made at that prior meeting because they apply directly to this meeting two years later. It gives you past history, about how frustrated we were two years ago.

On the first page, right at the bottom—it will be “page 11 of 43”—that's where my summation starts. I'll read from it.

I'd like to make a clarification before I start. I was down as representing the B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition. I'm not representing them. I'd like to state for the record I'm a member of the UFAWU, which is the fishermen's union on the B.C. coast. I'm also a member of the Fisheries Survival Coalition and at that time I was the chair of the standards and training committee for the B.C. Council of Professional Fish Harvesters. I'm currently a director for the B.C. Council.

I'm here representing my family and friends, and other families I have grown up with my whole life, fishing on the Fraser River. In my family, my mother fishes, my brother fishes, my father fishes, and my sister fishes. Our whole family is intimate with the fishing industry. We've done it our whole lives. We're third-generation fishermen on the B.C. coast and I'm here representing them as well as, I would say, most other fishermen on the coast, because we are all in the same shape and of like mind.

I'd just like to do an aside to this. I notice in a lot of comments, when we talk about natives, it's taken in an historical sense. I feel we have 100 years of history in the fishery, but it's never taken into consideration—our past attachment to it—to the same extent that you talk about a native attachment to a fishery. Why is it different? I don't understand that.

I'd like to start out by pointing out the east-west disparity that is so obvious to us on the west coast. The east coast cod stocks collapsed, bang.

I have it written that it was $1.2 billion, but Mr. Stoffer clarified that it was a $4 billion program for TAGS, right? So it was actually $4 billion for the TAGS program.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: John, it was not just TAGS. It was also NCARP and other adjustment programs all in total.

Mr. Bruce Probert: Oh, okay.

• 1959

Mr. Peter Stoffer: It was $4.2 billion, and still counting.

Mr. Bruce Probert: It was $4.2 billion for the east coast problems, right?

Then our stocks collapsed, and we got zero dollars. In hindsight, we got our licence fee back that year, which was worth $700, so we did get $700 from the government.

The year prior to that, the government had a program where if you didn't fish, they would give you $6,500 for expenses incurred getting ready. Well, when we didn't get to fish, we didn't get $6,500; we got our licence fee back.

• 2004

Speaking of 1999, I'd like to point out that to my mind the major part of this problem or crisis can be laid right at DFO's feet. It's total mismanagement. This point has not been brought up. There were 600,000 surplus Chilko sockeye beyond escapement requirements that made it back to the grounds. DFO didn't know there were all those extra fish. That is $6 million worth of fish we were not allowed to catch because of their mismanagement. The fish were there, but we were not allowed to catch them, and there was not a coho concern at the time this run was coming through.

Now, this was two years ago. We fished three days on the river last year, and we never got one fishery this year. We fished three days out of three years. That's our season.

I want you guys to understand that two years ago we were going broke; now we've suffered through another two years of mismanagement, and here we are. I just wanted to give you an historical perspective of how much aggravation we're going through on this coast.

The major problem remains, namely that there's negligence on the part of DFO. They've never listened to fishermen, who have grown up fishing, who've spent their whole life on the coast, and who know it intimately. This has no relevance to their program or to how they run the fishery. There's no accountability. If these managers let 20 million fish go to waste, they don't lose their jobs. We're the ones who are supposed to get another job while they keep mismanaging the resource. It's ridiculous.

• 2009

It's also interesting.... I'd like to note that this past season, DFO thought the stocks were in such bad shape that they shut down some native food fisheries. As well, there was no aboriginal sales component this year as far as I know, but the Cheam Band, which people spoke earlier about and which is in the Chilliwack area just about where I fish at Fort Langley, basically said they were going to fish anyway: “The fish are there, and we're going to fish”. They dared DFO to stop them. It took two weeks before DFO started pulling nets and confiscating the boats and trucks, which they had had the power to do the first day the band started fishing illegally.

This year DFO made an agreement with that same band that they would only come and enforce the law if they notified the band in advance. They would notify the band that they were coming to check nets, licences, and how many were in the area. Even if they were fishing when it was closed, it didn't matter. They declared their own fisheries, and DFO let them fish whenever they wanted and basically said they'd just take pictures. That's how it's being managed two years later.

The DFO personnel are not allowed to speak about the Cheam agreement or what goes on there because they'd be fired. I would suggest if you get any DFO enforcement guys or anyone else here you specifically ask about the conditions with the Cheam Band.

Another thing I'd like to point out is that with respect to the Marshall decision on the east coast, it was very interesting reading in the National Post about a week ago. All of a sudden I read that the only fair way to deal with the Marshall decision is to buy existing licences from non-native fishermen and transfer them to natives. Buy from non-natives and transfer them to the native fishery.

That was two years ago. Then it goes on: transfer them to the native fishermen so they can be in one commercial fishery. On the west coast we call that the “industrial solution”, and we have been asking for that since day one of the aboriginal fisheries strategy. It was seven years ago then and now it's nine. Nine years, and not one thing has been done about it. There's still a separate fishery going on that has separate rules and no mesh restrictions to conserve coho or other such conservation measures that apply to the commercial fleet in general. It's apparent to us that we mean nothing in the power centre of Ottawa.

In 1999 I didn't even get one sockeye for food that season, any for my family, or any for my friends. My gross income was $100. That was in 1999. My gross income for this year from sockeye is zero. That's how bad this has gotten, and it's not for lack of fish. You guys have to understand this: it's been reallocated. If they can sell all the fish they catch, there's no room for a commercial fishery.

Now I'd like to speak to some current issues. One thing is, with DFO we've been led down the garden path. You've heard it about the round table discussions, the Mifflin plan, and on and on and on. Well, when attending a Canadian Marine Advisory Council meeting, DFO made a presentation, and in it they stated their commitment to economic viability. How? I just about lost it. They sat there and told us they're committed to economic viability, yet we don't get to fish. How is that economically viable? I don't understand it.

Now, the Mifflin plan was created to reduce the commercial fleet. Sure, it did that, yet there's a native fleet that has increased 400% at the very same time they've reduced us by 50%. It's obvious there's still the same catching power, it's just based on race.

• 2014

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): I wonder if I could ask you to draw to a conclusion, if you wouldn't mind, please. We still have a number of witnesses and we're running out of time.

Mr. Bruce Probert: Well, I'd just like to point out one thing, and I hope you guys consider this when you make your recommendations.

In the Marshall decision they came out with a clarification. In it they said DFO must take into consideration other—meaning non-native—historical attachments to the industry. That's us, sitting in this room right now. Those fish should not be reallocated based on race. We have a place in this industry, and we have had for a hundred years in my family. I hope you do your best to give us an opportunity to go back fishing. I'll end it at that.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Are there any questions? Okay.

Thank you very much, Bruce. I appreciate you taking the time to come before the committee again today.

The next witness is Kim Nguyen. Hi, Kim. Thank you very much for coming here today. I appreciate it. I understand these places can seem a little bit tough on a person. If you don't mind, Kim, what I would do, with the consent of the committee, is ask some questions.

She said she would be much more comfortable if I did that.

Kim, you come from Vietnam. How long ago did you come to Canada?

Ms. Kim Nguyen (Spokesperson, B.C. Vietnamese Fishermen's Association): I came to Canada in 1979.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Where did you go when you came to Canada?

Ms. Kim Nguyen: I landed in Edmonton, and stayed there for three years. Then the business moved to Toronto. I didn't want to move to Toronto, so I decided to go to B.C. because I have friends here. I'm friends with people I met on the streets, you know, my people. They told me they had a good business in fishing back home—here too. They wanted me to join them. At that time, I had my uncle's family here. I went home and talked to them, and my uncle and I decided to go into a fishing business. That was 1984-85.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): So you went into fishing in 1984.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: 1985.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): If you don't mind, how did you manage to get the money to get into the business? I understand you did go in and you bought a boat eventually.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: When we came here, I stayed with my uncle's family. At that time I was single. I worked seven days a week. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday I did cleaning. On the other four days I worked at the GWG jeans factory. At night I went to school. I worked really hard. My uncle worked too. He's old. My aunt had to babysit. We put all our money together. At that time, we saved all the money we had, because in the new country we didn't have any. When we left our country we had nothing. We are boat people.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): So you worked hard, saved your money, and got into the industry.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Yes, we saved some. You know, at that time the boat cost around $58,000, and we didn't have enough money. So we asked two other friends, and the three of us together bought the boat. We had two cousins, and with us it made three. We had $20,000 each to put in. We've been fishing together.

At first, in 1986, we didn't know anything at all about the coast of B.C. We didn't make any money. We went out fishing first for salmon. We didn't know how to set the net, the gear and everything. My old friends knew nothing and didn't speak very much English. I had to watch what other people were doing and copy it. I lost nets and everything. It took a while, three or four years. That was for the salmon.

• 2019

Then we went for shrimp. We didn't know where to go to drag for shrimp. We put it down, but we hooked the bottom and broke the pole. Nets were getting stuck and we'd lose them. We were broke, and the other partners gave it up. We had a really tough time. We didn't know anything at all.

I talked to other fishermen there and asked them to give me advice, because the two other partners gave up, and my uncle and I had to take the boat. We had to borrow a little bit of money from a cousin. We paid him back. We promised them we'd make money so we could pay the other partners, and they could find something else. It wasn't enough for three families to live on. So the two left, and my uncle and I had to take the boat. At that time, we were learning from the fishermen day by day.

We are the second Vietnamese fishing industry in B.C.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): The second one?

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Yes. Yes, and there was an older guy, Owen Grenville, who had lots of experience in the country, because he was working in the army. He worked on the big ships, and he showed us the way. But the operator had to copy all the fishermen there.

At that time, we knew a little bit. We could decide to go fishing. I began to feel comfortable about knowing a little bit, and I asked the fishery guy in Steveston, where to go, the rules and everything.

Around 1990, I felt very comfortable. We were able to go up to Rupert.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Things were pretty tough when you started in 1985, but by 1990 you felt comfortable travelling up to Prince Rupert and around the B.C. coast. And you were making money, I presume?

Ms. Kim Nguyen: We were making a little bit of money at that time. We made lots of mistakes before, but we learned and tried not to do those things. Yes, we made money, and I paid back all the money to the other two partners. Now the boat belongs to us.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): You made your money, you paid your boat off—

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Yes, everything.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): —and life was great up to 1992.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: That was a good year. We made quite a lot of money before 1992. After 1992, we didn't make any money at all, because the fishery was divided. We couldn't get....

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): So after 1992, when the government introduced this separate native commercial fishery, you lost opportunity.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Yes, that's true.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Where is your licence now? Which licence area do you—

Ms. Kim Nguyen: My licence is in area E.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Area E. So you're a Fraser River gillnetter.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: A Fraser River gillnetter. It is really tough, because my husband loves fishing. He was a fisherman back home, too. I married him because he was a good fisherman back home, and here too. Unfortunately, in 1996 he had kidney failure. But he loves fishing. I wanted to give up. I wanted to give the licence back to the government, but he said, please stay for me. One of the these days, he will be better.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Are there a lot of Vietnamese fishermen in British Columbia now?

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Yes, there are lots of Vietnamese fishermen.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Why do you think there are so many?

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Because some of them were fishing back home. They loved being fishermen. They're free. This country is freedom. So they can go out and fish. This was their job before, back home, too. The same job makes it different for them to go back to the land because they have a language problem.

• 2024

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Yes.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: That's why the people decided to go fishing. And before the fishing was really good. They made very good money. The fishery didn't divide into three areas. People could live well with only one licence. You could travel all over the coast; you could make money in here, you could make money in there. But right now it's like the area in the east. It happened here. There's no money at all.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): No.

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Things have been really tough.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Yes.

You've fished how long—two and a half days in the last three years?

There was a protest fishery last summer. A number of non-native fishermen—and some native fishermen too, I presume—and licensed commercial fishermen went out in a protest on the river out here, and 43 of them were ticketed by the government for their protest. Did you participate in that?

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Yes, I did.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Were you ticketed?

Ms. Kim Nguyen: I didn't drop the net down, but I wanted to go there and let the people know we want it to be fair for everybody. Fishing is for me and I'm working hard too. I'm good to the earth, too.

I'm Canadian too. I want to be treated fairly, not with...all the native fishing. I'm a human. I want to share everything fairly. I have a family. I have kids. I have a sick husband. No fish—without the money I can't live. It's really tough for me.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Kim, for your presentation.

I don't know whether any of the members have.... Madam Tremblay.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Madame, it is important that you know that we have clearly understood your message. Justice is certainly a Canadian value and we are going to make sure that this reaches Ottawa.

[English]

Ms. Kim Nguyen: Thank you very much.

I hope we can get treated fairly and we can live well. I have the book there. I'd pay for the mortgage. I'd pay for everything, but I don't have any money.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Kim.

We will now hear from Larry Wick, please.

Mr. Larry Wick (B.C. Fishing Vessel Owners Association): Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.

My name is Larry Wick. I am the third generation of a family in the fishing industry for four generations. My sons are presently in the industry. We own two seine boats, two prawn boats.

I've been involved on the Fraser panel for 14 years. I've been involved in the Fishing Vessel Owners Association. I've been a stakeholder negotiating the treaty and on numerous boards and panels throughout my 40 years in the industry.

I know you're in a hurry here, and I have about five items listed. I'll start with the Fraser panel. The Fraser panel has been in operation for the last 14 years; now there's a shadow over the panel as we in the Canadian caucus manage our fishery—and it is the ASF fishery. We who sit as members of the Fraser panel are not privileged to the information on the amount of fish, the times of fishing. It's done in another room, separately.

• 2029

At times we've had the department come in. After we have unilaterally made an agreement for an opening with the United States, we have had situations where the Government of Canada would come in and we'd have to go back to the table and withdraw the opening from our own fishermen and allow the natives to go fishing.

I won't say any more about the AFS, other than that it's completely out of control. It is tearing apart an industry and it's unjust and unfair.

I'll go on to the ESSR fishery. This past summer we had the gillnet fleet in area E, which is the Fraser River, waiting for an opening. Due to late-run management problems and other issues—namely AFS food and sales, what have you—we didn't get them in the water. But about 30 miles from here is Saanich Inlet, where we have a fall chum fishery going on. This ESSR, the escapement surplus to spawning requirement, has gone on to the point that 135,000 fish were taken before an area E gillnet was even in the water this year.

These ESSR fisheries have become private allocations. We have them going up in the Skeena River now. We have them going across the Saanich Inlet. Those of us in the industry who process our own product are looking at perhaps a $5-a-case reduction in the value of our salmon pack because of the quality that's been put on the market by the type of fishery. The ESSR seems to have turned into a strictly private allocation to which people can help themselves.

The next things I'll talk about are sales slips and recording of the catch. The system is so far behind the times and technology that we cannot get a handle on how many fish have been taken out of the water until the fall, maybe. If we're fishing in August we can't get proper tallies until fall. It has probably been 15 years since I've sat on the panel, and they've promised again and again to get a better system. We've made no progress—no progress—within DFO on this system.

If we had a bonding system where buyers like myself could get 500 slips, and at the end of the year, if I turned in 250 slips that have not been filled out and 250 that have been filled out...they would know at least what's going on. But right now there are books and paper and fish going over dikes and food fish going into private sales. It's almost impossible to manage the fishery when you sit at the Fraser panel because you don't know.... You send a fleet into the Fraser River, you expect to get x number of fish to justify the run size, and at times it takes weeks to get this type of information.

I was quite involved in the licensing program—or the Mifflin plan. I think back to when Mr. Anderson said:

We are working to achieve a future in which the fishery provides good incomes for fishermen and contributes to local economies. The fishery is not a sunset industry. It is an industry with a future.

Since then they haven't let us fish. You've heard all the stories today. These are the promises that some of us based our decision to stay in the industry on.

I can give you others right here:

...the commercial sector is expected to be substantially better off following the current licence retirement program.

This is from the new direction paper, An Allocation Framework for Pacific Salmon, 1999-2005. We've fished two days since then, the same fleet.

• 2034

I went out and bought a second licence. My sons are in the business. I bought a second licence so we could partake in the northern fishery and the southern fishery, to the tune of around $800,000. I mortgaged myself, my wife and my kids, but we're not getting any fishing time.

There's a new agenda somewhere that wasn't transmitted in the Mifflin plan, because these are the promises, that this will provide more opportunities for those fishermen who remain in the industry. This was called the Pacific Fisheries Adjustment and Restructuring Plan. These are the things we were led into this with, those of us who wanted to stay.

• 2039

We've been led down a trail like you wouldn't believe, because now you have an ESSR fishery that is a private allocation to two seine boats. Two seine boats got more than the rest of the 160 seine boats on the south coast. It's a private allocation.

We hear talk of Horsefly Lake, the tribes up there wanting to have ESSR fisheries now. We're hearing it all over. ESSR was never even mentioned during the time of Mifflin. It was never mentioned. It's something else that has been initiated along with AFS accelerating.

I sat at a panel meeting in Lillooet just a while ago where the chief of the Lillooet Band told me they caught 800 fish and were going to do what they want. He said they were not going by the treaties of Canada or the laws of Canada. The next day they took us up to a viewpoint where we looked at their drying racks and the Canadian and U.S. delegation were together on a bus. We walked up to the end of the viewpoint and I would say there were 50 to 100 sockeye dumped over the viewpoint, just lying in the bush. Alongside of it was a plastic swimming pool. My assumption, and I repeat assumption, is that those fish were in the swimming pool in the back of a truck and they couldn't find a buyer.

The commercial fishing fleet stood down all year to protect late-run fish. The area E gilnetters did not fish. The same fleet fished one day, while we had abuse like that going on up the river. There don't seem to be any rules or regulations on this.

I'll leave you with one thought. I met a man a while ago who lives in northern B.C. He has four children. They are a very close family, all married, eight grandchildren. One of his sons married a native woman. Every Sunday they had dinner together, a very tight family, until the privileges started coming in. When he took his five-year-old grandson down by the river, one grandson said to the other grandson, “I can fish in that river, but Jimmy can't”. Once that got out, the family didn't meet on Sundays any more because the rest of the family wouldn't attend. He said, “Larry, it broke up our family, and we're doing the same to our country”.

• 2044

I've worked in this industry with Ron Sparrow, of the Sparrow decision. I'm very good friends with a lot of natives, who are in the business, as I am. They're very frustrated, along with us, especially those of us in the commercial sector. A lot of them feel it's wrong.

If Canada wants to settle the aboriginal issue, then don't take my business away from me. Come forward, stand up and pay me, and I'll get out. But I think it's wrong to come in and take the business away from the lady who just left here and other people, to settle something that happened years ago that none of these people are responsible for.

We have done nothing wrong. We fished when it was open. We went by the promises, rules, and regulations, and now we're being stripped of our privileges. I'll stop there.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Larry.

James.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Larry, I'd just like to comment and capitalize that many of the witnesses today, including you, have referred to a series of promises made sequentially by ministers—downsizing and licences, buybacks, downsizing in the commercial industry—that there would be a future. Based on those promises, you made important financial decisions. Now the promises have not materialized. The fish are there, but you're not allowed to catch them, and the allocation is going elsewhere.

The industry, as we've heard from multiple witnesses today, has gone through rationalizing, cooperative programs with inspections, regulations, and limitations, and self-imposed things to try to conserve and manage it. Yet others receive the allotment without the same supervision and not by the same rules. We certainly sense the frustration that you people sequentially articulated very well today.

Further to that, you mentioned ESSR and a new form of taking the allotment and allocating it to someone else.

I just want to come back to something you mentioned earlier, Larry. You said you couldn't get a proper tally before the fall, so the fish had already come and gone before you got any idea of what the actual numbers were. You had a suggestion there. I was a little bit behind you there, and I just wonder if perhaps some of the other committee members were as well. Could you go over that again? You said if we only had some kind of document, you could make more sense of it for tallying.

Mr. Larry Wick: Okay. It's a United States system, actually. There are all types of technology, even above and beyond their system, at this point.

The way it is here, if you go fishing for a company you get a book from the department with a fish slip. It's designed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and given to the company. There can be 10 pages or 20 pages in the book, something like that. There's no way the department knows how many slips need to come back to them. I can go out fishing and make two deliveries in a day, or if I tear my net I won't get any fish, so I won't deliver. There's no idea, other than through a visual plane flyover, how many boats are operating.

You could have a system where, as a fish buyer, I got 500 slips from Department of Fisheries and Oceans. At the end of the week—we send in these recordings all the time when we get them—I might have used 200 slips and have 300 slips left. They could come and inspect and say “You have 300 slips here; where are the other 200?” I would say “Here they are right here.”

With this book system, they don't know if I delivered once, twice, or even if I fished that particular day. So they don't know what they're collecting at the other end. They have no idea how many boats are participating in a fishery.

It's something that would help us when we sat on the Fraser panel and allowed the gill net fleet to go fishing—God forbid, we haven't done that much. If you felt there were five million run sites, you could catch 100,000 fish in the Fraser River.

Now we go out and catch 60,000. The slips aren't in, so we don't know. All we have is an estimate going up and down the system. But with the allocation framework, everybody would be protected.

• 2049

You can win by beating the system and saying you don't have fish, or whatever. That is what's happening in the AFS fishery. They're saying they didn't catch this, and it's going on. Unless we get it corrected....

If we expect to catch 100,000 fish and we catch 120,000, the run is a little stronger than we anticipated. If 100,000 fish are caught and only 60,000 are recorded, we think the run is less, so we start closing things down. We have to get up to speed if we're going to manage by runs—early summer runs, summer runs, late runs, what have you.

The system has been promised to industry for years. When Eric Kramer was there, probably 15 years ago, he was going to have it. Then about three or four people stated they were going to have it. The vice-chair of the Fraser panel left about five years ago because she was going to design a system, but we still haven't seen a system.

They're probably trying to wrap crab and goeyduk and everything into the same slip. But to manage salmon is vital, and we're way behind on that.

Thank you.

Mr. James Lunney: How many buyers would be on the ground on the Fraser River fishery?

Mr. Larry Wick: In a regular one?

Mr. James Lunney: In a regular gillnet fishery, how many buyers would there be?

Mr. Larry Wick: There would 10, 15 at the most.

Mr. James Lunney: So essentially, that information could be transmitted to the department at the end of the day, if they had the proper—

Mr. Larry Wick: If they had the proper system in place, we could do it. We could do it online, or whenever.

Mr. James Lunney: Avis does it with their cars, so there's no reason why the fishery couldn't do it with a computer system.

Mr. Larry Wick: The system's too sloppy to manage fish.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Are there other questions for the witness? Mr. Stoffer.

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

When you said that delegation had noticed those salmon at the bottom of the hill, did you report that to any authority?

Mr. Larry Wick: Yes, I did.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: What did the authorities say?

Mr. Larry Wick: They were looking into it.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: When was that?

Mr. Larry Wick: There were DFO personnel with us and I didn't say anything. I left it. Then another issue came up or somebody phoned me, because I sit on the Fraser panel. They told me there was red-skin coloured sockeye being sold at a Save-On-Foods and Drugs in North Van at Park and Tilford. They asked me if I would do something about it.

I phoned DFO about that particular incident. While I was on the phone, I mentioned it to the people at DFO. About an hour later the person from Lillooet phoned me. They said they knew about the incident because it had been reported. They were talking with the bands around there, but nobody seemed to know anything about it.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: When you hear about 20 million salmon coming up the river, that's a problem we in the Hays River in Cape Breton, in the Humber in Labrador, and the Miramichi in New Brunswick would love to have. We're not getting any salmon at all coming up those rivers.

As a person who's been in the industry for many years—and I've asked other people this as well—why do you think DFO is doing what they're doing? If you could give us a recommendation to give back to Mr. Dhaliwal, what would you advise us to do?

Mr. Larry Wick: There should be one fishery for all. We should all fish in that fishery.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Equally, yes.

Mr. Larry Wick: If a native wants to be a fisherman, he can come in and fish with us, and no privileges. Everybody pays the same freight. You pay the same on licences, and you come in and fish together when it's open. That's it—one set of rules. We're not looking for a slanted table or anything, we just want a level table. That's all we want.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Mr. Wick, is this handout you gave out part of your presentation?

Mr. Larry Wick: Which one?

Mr. Tom Wappel: It has quotes in it and then it has the Peckford inquiry. Is that your handout?

Mr. Larry Wick: Yes, there was some Peckford inquiry stuff in it.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Can I ask you about the Peckford inquiry?

Mr. Larry Wick: If I can remember it, yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: It kind of startles me that in 1995 you could fish the entire B.C. coast for $800, and it has jumped to $4,100. Then the value of a gillnet boat licence went up phenomenally, simply because somebody arbitrarily split it into three areas. It's the same thing with the seine licence and the value of the seine boat.

• 2054

Mr. Larry Wick: That's right.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I'm startled. Maybe I shouldn't be. I'm not a fisherman.

Mr. Larry Wick: You're lucky.

Mr. Tom Wappel: What's the rational for that, or was that a policy specifically designed to drive people out of the business, to make the fleet smaller?

Mr. Larry Wick: I think the design was to get fewer boats and more fish per vessel. Back in the late 1980s or the first part of the 1990s, the return on sockeye per se was good. Now it's not, because of farm fish. We have a lot of competitors out there. We have Chile, Norway, and everybody else flooding the world. But I think those of us who are here in the industry can find a niche. I really do.

I have a small company that produces a little smoked pack of salmon. We do some herring, some tuna loins, a few little things like that. Hopefully we'll get our little plant open now in Abbotsford, with 70 jobs. We're trying to do that, but this salmon season has really put into question whether we should stay or go.

Basically, we bought a lot of our salmon out of Alaska this year to supply our markets. Why are we doing that? We may as well go to the States and have cheaper taxes, or go to Alaska and get loans.

Mr. Tom Wappel: But the reason I'm asking is because you handed this out as part of your presentation, and I'm trying to figure out its relevance in the current context. Was this part of the accepted methodology to downsize the industry, or did the fishermen protest these massive increases?

Mr. Larry Wick: Oh, there were both sides to the coin. A lot of fishermen wanted the coast left wide open and just the boats bought out. A lot of them wanted areas.

As far as dividing the coast up is concerned, it was done mostly for management purposes, so you weren't fishing in the top end of Johnstone Strait and catching fish that were going to Rivers Inlet. We got some of the outside fisheries brought in, so we knew what stocks we were fishing, rather than having wild round-up fisheries where you were getting multiple stocks and didn't know which ones you were hurting. That's why they brought some of this in, put in the divisions on the coast.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Fine. Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you, Mr. Wappel.

If I could ask you very quickly, Larry.... The issue was raised a little earlier about the difficulty some processors were having and that they had gone again to the Japanese market, for essentially the third year in a row, and made arrangements to sell Fraser River sockeye. Now again they've had to say “Sorry, we can't supply the contract”. We've been told, of course, they experienced some difficulty. The Japanese said “Don't bother us again until you have the product”. Has that been your experience, or are you familiar with those concerns?

Mr. Larry Wick: That happened to me this year.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Is that right?

Mr. Larry Wick: Last year we brought four buyers over to view product, thinking that this year we had a good season coming, a good chance of getting fish. We set up a program, known as the lunch box program, for the farmers in Japan, where one meal a week is bought by the government to allow the farmers to stay longer in the fields. It's a huge delivery company, like the Dairyland system, where the housewife can mark down what she wants for the next week's meals.

Along with our buyers over there, this year they brought 17 people with them to Canada to view the product, to look at our plants, to introduce them to us and us to them. We couldn't supply them 20,000 pounds of fish by the time it was over, because of these openings—and they're dumping them over the bank up there.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): One of the issues, of course, is quality. It has always been a concern on the Fraser River. In fact Fraser River sockeye have been known worldwide for their high quality. Among commercial fishermen generally, the fish are taken out of the net and put into slush. Of course that improves the quality, maintains the quality of the fish, so there's a well-earned reputation. That's really not the case in that aboriginal fishery.

• 2059

Would you care to comment on that? Is that going to affect our reputation at all?

Mr. Larry Wick: It certainly affects the markets locally, I would say, on into Alberta and places like that. But they are getting fish into Japan now. It's starting to arrive there. You can see them in the market at Tsukiji, container loads are going.

I understand a new plant has been built up the Fraser River on an Indian reserve, which I'm told DFO didn't want anything to do with, but Indian Affairs apparently has funded it. I haven't been in it, but I hear it's stainless steel, a top-of-the-line plant. I'm assuming that's where some of it is going.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): It's a pretty nice plant. I've seen it.

Mr. Larry Wick: I haven't seen it. I have no idea. I know those of us in the industry probably couldn't afford it.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): No. It's a brand spanking new building, just marvellous.

Mr. Larry Wick: I guess my big concern is that it's so unjust and so unfair what has gone on here when we have bought into the system in good faith. They had a chance to get out.

Here's the thing. It's not going to be a sunset industry; it's going to be economically viable; we're going to do all those things. The rules keep changing. They harvest in the ESSR fishery. They harvest themselves food fish.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thank you very much, Larry.

I think that issue of quality is an important one. A fellow at the back of the room, Dave Wheeler, last summer spotted a truck on the freeway and followed it into a processor in Vancouver. That stuff had been trucked down probably from the Skeena. So it travelled about 800 miles in a one-ton that totes fish, and it was going for sale, processed here in Vancouver. Gosh knows where it was going to go, but you have to question the quality, because it was at the end of the year up there, and yet this stuff was going out of Canada as a product of Canada. It undermines the product of people who take the care to make sure that the fish are handled properly.

The last witness, I believe, will be Mike Haffenden, please.

Sorry to have kept you waiting so long, Mike. You've been very patient, but I'm sure you're a man noted for his patience.

Mr. Mike Haffenden (Individual Presentation): I broke into fishing in 1958. I was working on a log boom in Kelsey Bay, and a fish boat had an injured fisherman. They needed a young guy, and I went aboard. Twelve days later I had a house paid for, and I've never quit fishing since.

Fishing today is a little different. I believe we're on the wrong course. I believe totally we're mismanaged, and I'm very afraid of the DFO's aggressive attitude with fish enforcement on a minor scale. When they should be enforcing on the Fraser River, they're not to be seen. But on minor infractions, in the city of Vancouver lately I have seen enforcement officers with loaded weapons in the middle of the city in confrontation with basically crab and prawn fishermen.

I think this agenda is bad, and I bring to your attention that the RCMP are now teaching the officers of the DFO. I think the RCMP themselves are despicable, and I want this agenda brought to your attention.

I'll answer this man here. If I had one thing to change in the fishery, it's the mismanagement of this aboriginal strategy. That's my whole opinion.

Thank you very much.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): The last witness will be Ken Connolly, please.

I think this is the last witness. There are a couple of guys at the back of the room who we would like to have share their knowledge with us today, but they're declining.

• 2104

Mr. Ken Connolly (Coordinator, Area E Gillnetters Association): Hello. My name is Ken Connolly. I'm an Area E Gillnetters Association coordinator between area E fishermen and DFO. I am here at the last minute, as Bob McKamey couldn't show up. I was supposed to read a letter that he faxed me.

We were talking about the mismanagement of DFO. I've been well aware of it, as it has been shoved down my throat all bloody year.

In March or February this year, I attended a meeting on Vancouver Island with regard to the upcoming sockeye fishery. Basically what we were promised in area E was that we would catch so much fish that we wouldn't know what to do with them. They were talking at that time of around 19 million fish. I said don't be so sure of yourselves, because we're at the back end of the buck. In front of us are the Johnstone Strait fisheries, the troll fisheries, the seine fisheries. Then there are the native fisheries, the American fisheries, and then we're the last ones. The sport fisheries are even ahead of us. We're the last. It came to pass that we didn't fish.

As to dealing with management in DFO, I don't know if you're going to be attending meetings with DFO or not later on this week, but if you are, there are two people you should be well aware of, who have very big egos, and who are the cause of this mismanagement. One is Wayne Saito, with the Pacific Salmon Commission, and the other is Paul Ryall, who took it upon himself to basically wipe out the sockeye fishery this year.

An hon. member: Paul...?

Mr. Ken Connolly: Paul Ryall, R-y-a-l-l. He's the Fraser River manager. Wayne Saito is one of the head guys on the Pacific Salmon Commission.

An hon. member: [Inaudible—Editor].

Mr. Ken Connolly: No, Wayne Saito wasn't there, and Paul forgot to show up himself.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Who told you that? Sorry to interrupt. At that meeting on Vancouver Island, who told you...?

Mr. Ken Connolly: It was other DFO managers with regard to Johnstone Strait seine fisheries and Johnstone Strait—

Mr. Peter Stoffer: You don't have that comment in writing, do you?

Mr. Ken Connolly: I just have my notes. I could name you the people there. What happened later on is that I tried to go after these people with regard to this, and they started doing the shuffle. All these managers who were in place at the beginning of the year shuffled off into different directions. But still Paul was left in his place.

As to dealing with them, I'll give you an example. I sent a letter to Mr. Dhaliwal with regard to these two people being malicious, confusing, and irresponsible. It was September 11 when I sent it. I figured it was going to get lost in the shuffle. I was called to the DFO office on Annacis Island and I had to answer to Mr. Ryall as to why I had called him this. He basically wanted an apology. I said I had reasons for it, one of which was with regard to the mismanagement.

Paul phoned us, the area E association people, asking if I could direct a commercial fishery for 100,000 nets—in other words, half a net and two hours of fishing for 50,000 pieces of sockeye. I said that's not my job; it's the Salmon Commission's job and the Department of Fisheries' job—his job. He was worried that he was going to get dragged over the coals by allowing this fishery. I said no. So they did say they were going to try to give us an opening. At the last second, they changed their minds, and we were allowed 50,000 pieces, and they allowed it and gave it to the natives, who went out and fished that day—the Tsimshian, Stó:lo, Fort Langley, Katzie, and Musqueam bands.

The Musqueam fishery was the last fishery. That was the straw that broke the camel's back for the gillnetters in the Fraser River. So we went out and protested just to try to prove a point, because that was the only fish we knew we were going to catch this season. So that was one of the things I told Mr. Ryall, that it was malicious. He offered us the fishery. Then he yanked it away and gave it to somebody else, who happened to be the natives.

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On Wayne Saito, he was in the union hall with Mr. Radosevic and John Sutcliffe—this was on a Monday morning—and he told a bunch of fishermen and other members of the union and the fishing communities at that time that he was going to have a directed fishery on the Fraser River on Tuesday morning for x amount of hours.

In the meantime, the fishermen decided they had better get ready and tell the other fishermen that there was going to be an opening. They all left except for a few people from the Pacific Salmon Commission and other people from the union. Wayne Saito walked out of that room and said “I can't do this. I can't allow a fishery.”

So he promised a fishery to the area E gillnetters and then took it away. That's malicious and that's very confusing, and that's why we sent this letter to Mr. Dhaliwal.

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We talked with Paul Ryall about past goings-on within the department and that, for whatever reasons, the run size was at six million. We were allowed, supposedly, to have a fishery. All of a sudden, the run size dropped to five million, then four million. It slowed down the native fishery. When it dropped to five million, he went out and made a carte blanche agreement with the natives, the Tsimshian and Stó:lo bands, to have their fishery. They allowed 1.2 million fish to be taken by the group, with 300,000 or so for the Musqueam-Tsawwassen-Burrard bands.

He knew the run size was going down. I believed he was operating in good faith, and hopefully the run size would go back up. It didn't go back up fast enough. After August 20, we were basically out of the water.

I've been privy to other stuff. Mr. Woody, with the Pacific Salmon Commission, stated we were going to get an opening on August 18, 19, or 20, no later. It wasn't about to happen, because we were going to catch a few hundred late summer sockeye.

There was a communication between the Pacific Salmon Commission and one of the DFO members. They put the whole season down to bad timing and bad luck. It's why we didn't fish. Those were their thoughts.

We're trying to deal with other fisheries. I was trying to deal with Mr. Ryall. He decided it was critical that we could have directed pink fisheries, whether it be through the seine boats or gillnets in other areas.

I was trying to raise money for a selected program we were running through area E by trying to catch 100,000 pinks to help fund the program. No one within DFO could give me the okay. Mr. Ryall decided to take a three-week vacation. The next person in charge was on a two-week vacation.

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I went through the process for two weeks, phoning other area managers on Vancouver Island and trying to get Fisheries and Oceans. They agreed to it. They okayed it, but it had to go through Mr. Ryall. When I approached him in a meeting, he apologized and said it wouldn't happen again.

Meanwhile, 20 million or so pinks went up the river. They are only allowed six million. This was a complete waste of a product of fish that could have been dealt out to other fisheries or fishermen in a time of crisis.

In dealing with the chum salmon on the Fraser River, it's the same bloody fiasco. Mr. Ryall made an agreement with the Tsimshian and Stó:lo bands for a total of 70,000 fish. We're not allowed to fish because the province is holding us hostage over the steelhead and coho concerns.

The province won't let area E fishermen fish in the month of October. We did get one fishery, albeit a short one for ten hours, while the natives had a seven to ten-day fishery. They said they never caught enough, but kept fishing anyway.

When it was our turn to finally go out for ten hours, Mr. Ryall allowed a pilot sales fishery the day before. The natives have always had it on the weekends. We were finally going to get a fishery on Thursday. The Musqueam Band said they were going to fish in front of them and were not going to allow them to fish afterwards.

It's another decision Mr. Ryall has made that jeopardizes the livelihoods of the area E fishermen. Time and time again he has done it.

I asked for his boss. He said who it was. He is from the coast guard, not DFO. The previous manager was from treaties.

An hon. member: Was it Mr. Ryall?

Mr. Ken Connolly: No. Mr. Ryall is a DFO salmon biologist. The person above him now, who was put in charge, is Pablo Sobrino. He's from the coast guard. The person underneath him, who I'm dealing with for the Fraser River, is from treaties. It's the first year she has ever been involved in fishing.

An hon. member: Do I understand that a person from the coast guard is the direct supervisor of a person who is the fisheries officer?

Mr. Ken Connolly: Yes.

An hon. member: I want to make sure I understand the chain of command.

Mr. Ken Connolly: The boss over Pablo Sobrino is Bert Ionson.

An hon. member: [Inaudible—Editor].

Mr. Ken Connolly: No.

An hon. member: No?

Mr. Ken Connolly: He ran the native fisheries on the Fraser River for the last seven years. Now he's their boss. He's in charge of the south coast management now. He's from native fisheries. We're seeing where this path is going. It's in the wrong direction.

For example, the Skeena River fisheries management has been in place for seven to ten years. They'll bring a couple of people in and train them so they get accustomed to the cycle runs, etc. They're entrenched. We've gone through four fish managers for the Fraser River in the last five years. They're from the coast guard and treaties. The one before that was from sports fishing.

As I said, Mr. Ryall said he has been having problems with the finances since 1995. He says they are the people he has to deal with because there's a lack of funding. It was his excuse to me.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Okay.

Do you have a comment, Madam Tremblay? Go ahead.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: After listening to this all day long, I think I have the solution: British Columbia will have to separate.

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[English]

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Madame Tremblay thinks this is a solution here. After listening to this all day, she suggests we may have to separate.

Some hon. members: Hear, hear!

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): One of the gentlemen who was supposed to be here, Bob McKamey, didn't show up, but he sent me this letter I'm supposed to read to you. These are his thoughts:

By now you're probably numb with facts, issues and ideas on how to resolve the commercial fishing crisis in B.C. You will return to Ottawa to decide what is fact and what is rhetoric. I fear that in your attempt to “get the facts straight” you won't stop to think about the fundamental flaw in the whole issue of who should participate in commercial fisheries. The Constitution does not discriminate against anyone with regard to commercial fishing.

I suspect that you haven't had time to stop and realize that your government has introduced the most openly racist policy seen in Canada in the last 50 years. The concept of the AFS Pilot Sales program is no less racist than if you said, effective tomorrow, black people will not be allowed to work in the Postal Service or that Asian people may no longer drive taxis. You can try to pretty it up and make it look like something else but no amount of sugar coating can get past the fact that you are being drawn into a process that hasn't been seen since Rosa Lee Parks stood up and said “I'm not sitting at the back of the bus any longer”.

Most of you probably got involved in politics with a commitment that there was a point beyond which you could not go to support party policy. You knew that you were a politician second and a principled person first. Having said that you probably never felt that you would be called on to look in the mirror and decide if you really are that principled individual dedicated to all the things that have made our country great.

Well folks, it's party time. You now have to decide if you can support open and directed racism. Don't take the easy road of those before you by saying “I know it's wrong but if I don't do it somebody else will”. Don't throw this letter away because it makes you uneasy about who you really might be.

Maybe you can rationalize racism when it only impacts a few families far from the seat of power. Maybe you can find government sponsored racism acceptable when it can be used to avoid conflict with aboriginal bands. Maybe you can be party to racism when to do otherwise could affect your political career and income. Maybe you can sit by and watch the abuse of families that have been in Canada for generations. If you can, then I feel sorry for you and for the people you represent. I also worry about what our country will look like when you people have finished “governing”.

I'm constantly reminded how fortunate I am to live in Canada, the best country in the world. Our ability to create a strong unified country despite our diverse heritage is said to be a result of fighting for and protecting a set of basic principles on how we treat all our citizens. It looks good on TV. It may not be such an easy issue to deal with when you have to put your name on the bottom line. Good luck.

Mr. Wappel.

Mr. Tom Wappel: I am just trying to be clear. The AFS was brought in when?

A voice: 1992.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So that was under Minister Crosbie and a Conservative government. I mention this because I keep hearing “your government” this, “your government” that, and “when you're finished governing”. It seems to me that it spans governments. These are ideas that are brought in by the bureaucracy and sold to the minister of the day, and then it goes from there. I just wanted to be clear on that.

Could I ask you, why are you at the bottom of the fishing ladder? You were going through all of the people who get the fish before you. Why?

Mr. Ken Connolly: Well, we're the last ones, and after that is the conservation....

Mr. Tom Wappel: But why? How's the pecking order determined?

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Mr. Ken Connolly: The fish have to go either through Johnstone Strait, the inside of Vancouver Island, or the west coast of Vancouver Island. The groups out there that get the fish would be the troll groups, I believe two different troll groups. There's the seine group, an area D gillnet group, and then there's a gulf troll out here. Then the Americans have to fish in there, and that's where the Pacific Salmon Commission comes in. There are concerns that the Americans are allowed, I believe, 18% to 20% of the total run catch, which supports their native fisheries and their commercial all-citizens' fishery, which is what they call them down there. Then it comes to the AFS. Food and ceremonial fishing has to be done, and it's always done first. Then the sports fishing is allowed, and then there's area E.

If in some cases the runs come back short—it happened at one time in August, and we were shut down for conservation needs until the run size could go up to six million. Traditionally, we fished at 3.5 million and made a fantastic living out of it. But when they started seeing the run size actually going down to four million, they were at a point where they were going to stop even the native fisheries. Then Mr. Ryall promised...his words were that he couldn't promise anything he couldn't guarantee. Well, he promised to deliver to the native fisheries. Those were his words.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Let's talk about Mr. Ryall for a moment. How long has he been around?

Mr. Ken Connolly: Too long.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Give me a timeframe.

Mr. Ken Connolly: I believe for five or six years.

Mr. Tom Wappel: But he hasn't always been the Fraser River manager.

Mr. Ken Connolly: No, he was on Vancouver Island as the DFO biologist.

Mr. Tom Wappel: You said there have been four fish managers on the Fraser in the last five years.

Mr. Ken Connolly: Yes, but they were under him. He's the Fraser River biologist.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Oh, he's the Fraser River biologist, not the manager.

Mr. Ken Connolly: He is the manager because he's the DFO biologist who directs the fisheries. Wayne Saito is the Pacific Salmon Commission's biologist.

Mr. Tom Wappel: But isn't there some bureaucrat above him? I don't mean the coast guard. Is there a scientist who directs this, or is it a functionary?

Mr. Ken Connolly: He has the mandate to direct the fisheries. He's in charge.

Then there's an area E salmon manager. Her name's Barb Mueller, and she was from treaties. She's the new kid on the block—the whipping post is what I call her. In regard to this chum salmon, just as a perfect example, her cubical is here and two cubicals away is the other lady who's in charge of the chum fishery. She manages the test fishing on the Fraser River. Barb has to e-mail her. She can't walk over to her because this other lady won't give her any of the numbers. It's like the Access to Information Act, yet they're trying to work within their department. They only release tidbits, and then she can release them to us. I've talked to her many a time, and she's totally frustrated with the system. They're supposed to be working together in this one office, and one hand doesn't know what the other—

Mr. Tom Wappel: Now, there was a vacation incident you told us about, where no one could make a decision in his absence. Was that this year?

Mr. Ken Connolly: Yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Was this the first year he was in a position to make those decisions solely?

Mr. Ken Connolly: No.

Mr. Tom Wappel: What I'm getting at is he's had other vacations while in the same position.

Mr. Ken Connolly: Oh, yes.

Mr. Tom Wappel: So how come it was this past year only that it came up that somebody wanted a decision to fish and he wasn't around? Is there no protocol set up for people who go on holidays?

Mr. Ken Connolly: No.

Mr. Tom Wappel: We'll ask him that, but—

Mr. Ken Connolly: Yes, he took the time off at the wrong time, and he agreed that it won't happen again next year. But he leaves somebody in charge, which is scary, because—

Mr. Tom Wappel: “We'll do better next year”—I think we've heard this before.

Thank you.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Thanks very much, Ken. We really appreciate you taking the time to make a presentation.

I think Madam Tremblay had a quick question for Mr. Haffenden.

[Translation]

Ms. Suzanne Tremblay: Mr. Haffenden, thank you for agreeing to return to the table.

You spoke briefly about the RCMP earlier. If your words have been translated correctly, you said that the RCMP was not reliable. Could you give me a bit more information about this, please?

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[English]

Mr. Mike Haffenden: To Madame Tremblay, the RCMP has shown great ineptitude at investigating. Because of the fuzzy thinking in our country, that would be sort of the politically correct thinking. We're hiring RCMP and training RCMP officers who are small in stature and trained to be very aggressive. This is a mode the RCMP has gone to, that they are poor and inept at investigating, and because of their size—invariably hiring women and smaller-stature people—they are taught to be very aggressive.

This form of training is now being used for police officers, who, because of the racial...because of the political climate, are in the same mode as the RCMP. We now have quite small-stature Department of Fisheries enforcement officers, who then are taught to be aggressive. I believe this is the wrong way to go.

The Vice-Chair (Mr. John Cummins): Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Haffenden.

As one quick note for the committee, it seems you're interested in the qualifications of some of the senior people here. Regarding the last director general, as was mentioned earlier, her previous job, before she became the director general here, was handing out flags in Heritage Canada. The director general previous to that was with Agriculture Canada. So there has been a series of inept leadership on the issue.

The other point I wanted to make when Mr. Wick left—he talked about dumping of fish—was that it's not an uncommon occurrence. I get calls on that in the summer, all the time, as does Mr. Eidsvik. If you talk to fisheries officers out in Chilliwack and Abbotsford, they'll tell you the same thing. They find dumped fish in obscure spots, time after time. I've chased that stuff down and I've seen it. It's offensive, but it happens.

I want to thank the committee on behalf of the fishermen. It has been a long day for you—five and a half hours on the plane, and over six hours here. We appreciate your dedication and the quiet attention you've paid to the witnesses. So thank you very much, committee, on behalf of everyone here.

The meeting stands adjourned.