FOPO Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON FISHERIES AND OCEANS

COMITÉ PERMANENT DES PÊCHES ET DES OCÉANS

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, November 8, 2001

• 0910

[English]

The Chair (Mr. Wayne Easter (Malpeque, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order.

Welcome, folks.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), we'll have a briefing session on the implementation of the Nisga'a Treaty.

We have with us, from the Nisga'a Tribal Council, Joseph Gosnell, the president; Harry Nyce, the director of fish and wildlife; Jim Aldridge, legal counsel; and Karl English, consultant. Welcome, fellows.

I believe you have a presentation, both written and PowerPoint. We'll go through that and then go to questions.

Joseph, the floor is yours.

Mr. Joseph Gosnell (President, Nisga'a Tribal Council): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, let me say to all of you that we're extremely pleased to be called to present our views with respect to the fisheries in the Nass River area.

As indicated by the chair, with me is Harry Nyce, the director of fish and wildlife for the Nisga'a Lisims government; Karl English is a fisheries biologist who has worked with us for many years; and Jim Aldridge has been legal counsel for us since he came out of law school, which was ages and ages ago.

As most of you no doubt are keenly aware, the traditional territory of the Nisga'a Nation is in the northwest portion of British Columbia. The Nass River is also the third-largest salmon-producing river in British Columbia. The fisheries play an extremely important part in the lives of the members of our nation, not only today but from a cultural standpoint, and more recently, when the fisheries began, from an economic standpoint.

As you no doubt are aware, the Nisga'a Treaty has now been in place since May 11, 2000. One of the key chapters of our treaty is the fisheries chapter, under which the Nisga'a Nation has guaranteed entitlements to fisheries resources as well as a permanent role in the management of Nass area fisheries.

During the negotiation and ratification of our treaty, many people expressed fears that the treaty would fail, the fisheries provisions would be unworkable, and the conservation of the fisheries resource would be jeopardized. We have now gone through two fishing seasons, and we're here to tell you that everything is working out quite well.

As no doubt you will see from the presentation we will make to you, the management provisions of the treaty are being implemented. Our people are harvesting. Even as I speak to you, the last of the coho run is still in progress, with an extremely excellent return of coho stocks in the Nass River again this year. Our people are already realizing the economic benefits in the area of conserving fish.

• 0915

To the best of our knowledge, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is happy with the new arrangements that have been made. As a result of the negotiation and implementation of the treaty, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Nisga'a Nation now have vastly improved data and management tools with which to ensure that the benefits of Nass area fisheries are enhanced and enjoyed, not only by Nisga'a people but by other Canadians.

Moreover, we have not heard any complaints whatsoever about the new arrangements from either the commercial sector or the recreational fisheries. We hope the lessons we have learned and the experiences we have achieved will provide others with optimism that it is possible to reach agreements that address the needs and aspirations of first nations and result in benefits for all.

The Nisga'a Treaty is no longer theory. To us it is reality—the reality that for the first time in over 100 years in the life of our nation we have the ability to govern our own lives, make decisions that will benefit our people, and conserve the fisheries resource not only for ourselves and future generations, but more importantly for other Canadians to enjoy. I'm sure those who harvest commercially and those who participate in the recreational sector over the years that follow will benefit from the work currently being carried on in the Nass River area.

We intend to live up to our obligations, as very explicitly stated in the preamble to the treaty itself. We're now in the process of rebuilding that relationship, not only with the federal government but with the provincial government and all of the departments within those two governing bodies, to work cooperatively, not only for our benefit but more importantly for the benefit of other Canadians.

One of the most interesting aspects that has occurred since May 11, 2000, is the number of visitors who continuously come to the Nass River area, not only from our home province of British Columbia but from across Canada, the U.S., and around the world.

I received a fax last night when I checked in that the High Commissioner for Britain will be paying us a visit within two weeks. He's one of many notable individuals who have come up to see what has happened firsthand—not just to read about it, but to see with their own eyes and hear with their ears what has happened and continues to happen in the northwestern corner of British Columbia.

We believe it's a good-news story that needs to be told and heard by other Canadians. Yes, the possibility exists for first nations people to enter into a treaty with the Government of Canada and the respective provincial governments, and enter into a good working relationship with those bodies.

I'll leave the rest of the presentation to our technical people. Again, thank you very much for giving us this opportunity.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Gosnell.

I believe we'll go to the technical presentation. I think the best way to proceed, Karl—and maybe you can tell me if I'm wrong—is to take some questions as we go through it. I think that's the way we'll handle it. We have a fair bit of time.

Karl, are you taking it on?

Mr. Karl English (Consultant, Nisga'a Tribal Council): Yes.

• 0920

The Chair: Before you do that, this is basically a poster, I gather. Normal procedure is that briefs have to be translated, but this is not a brief. It's just a regular poster. Is that all right, Mr. Roy?

We'll hand that out. It's a poster from the Wilp Syoon Wilderness Lodge.

Mr. Harry Nyce (Director of Fish and Wildlife, Nisga'a Tribal Council): Mr. Chairman, just to explain this, as Joe has indicated, we're building partnerships, and this is part of it. We apologize if it's not in the order of the day, with respect to the French language. I apologize for that.

The Chair: Harry, maybe Mr. Roy could make a trip out there. You could get his picture on one. Then it could be translated and you could use him as an advertisement in Quebec.

Mr. Peter Stoffer (Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NDP): Mr. Chairman, I would like to make an emergency resolution and a motion that we all travel to the Nisga'a and try this out firsthand.

Voices: Oh, oh!

Mr. Peter Stoffer: So moved?

The Chair: Karl, you're on.

Mr. Karl English: Thank you very much for this opportunity. We have copies of what you'll be seeing on the projector, for those who are interested in them. We can hand them out at the end of the presentation.

The focus of this presentation is on the implementation of the treaty for the last two years on the fisheries program side. I'm going to take you through some basic background on the treaty and the processes, and then show you how the fishery is operated day by day.

First of all, the location, as Joe has identified, is in the sort of central western part of British Columbia. The upper Nass is one of the few remaining areas in B.C. where there is some unlogged timber. It's a very healthy watershed. Other parts of the Nass don't all look like this.

The river system and drainage basin cover an area of about 8,000 square kilometres, 400 kilometres in length. The two points noted on here are important points for the presentation. One is Gitwinksihlkw, one of the Nisga'a communities. It's where the lower set of fish wheels—you'll be hearing a lot about fish wheels today—are located. There are two right in a canyon near Gitwinksihlkw. There are now four more fish wheels in a canyon near a place called Grease Harbour.

There are a lot of tributaries to the Nass. The most important one, in terms of sockeye, is Meziaden Lake, but sockeye also go up into Damdochax. Salmon access all parts of this drainage for the full 400 kilometres.

On the key components of the final agreement with regard to fisheries, the first one is clearly defined goals for Nass area stocks. Prior to the treaty these goals were not clearly defined. The treaty process really brought these goals together. Without the goals it wasn't clear what Nisga'a allocations would be in any specific year or whether those allocations or management targets had been achieved. So setting goals was very critical. They're also a critical component for future marine stewardship council certification of these fisheries and possibly other fisheries in British Columbia.

On defined shares for salmon, this defines the Nisga'a aboriginal right to fish and their share of the salmon stocks. That's, of course, in the treaty.

The joint fisheries management committee is also defined in the treaty.

Another area is systematic assessment management and harvesting systems. They have to be put in place because of the requirement to deliver and manage stocks to these allocations.

• 0925

Effective harvest controls include a whole series. You'll see a list of them in a minute, but they're the Nisga'a laws and regulations, essentially, that along with federal laws and regulations are controlling the fishery.

Finally, there are annual assessments and catch audits so that you know whether you've achieved your goals and whether there's any catch taken in excess of those goals.

During the treaty negotiation process, this type of graph was used quite a bit because it related, at the bottom, the total return for Canada to what the harvest for the different parties would be. In small-run years there's a requirement that all the fish go to escapement. This is the conservation.

What we mean by escapement is spawners. These are the fish that go to spawn to produce the fish for subsequent years. Below stock sizes of this level—the bottom of the graph; about 100,000 or fewer sockeye—all the fish go to escapement.

Then there's a period when there's a small slice of a Nisga'a fishery when there are no other fisheries. During this period—and these are the treaty entitlement fish—these will only be used for food, social, or ceremonial purposes, because there won't be any other fisheries.

When you reach your escapement goal—which is this 200,000 for sockeye, and which is well defined from a biological standpoint—then all the other fisheries kick in. You can see that the other Canadian fisheries—these would be sport and commercial fisheries operated by non-Nisga'a citizens and some Nisga'a involved in the commercial fishery—expand very rapidly as you go to increasing returns.

The Chair: I was just going to ask you, Karl, there are situations where even the Nisga'a wouldn't have their food and ceremonial allocation, isn't that right?

Mr. Karl English: That's correct, below 100,000 sockeye.

The Chair: Are there any questions to date, before we move along too far?

Thanks Karl.

Mr. Karl English: The two lines here indicate the stock sizes in the year 2000 and the year 2001. You can see very clearly there's not the same run every year. In fact for next year we are predicting right now a run that could very readily be off this chart and would be one of the highest runs for sockeye to the Nass.

These occur, of course, for all species. I will just go through the two most high-profile ones, the sockeye first and chinook second. You can see the same type of graph here. There is only a Nisga'a Treaty entitlement; there are no harvest agreement fish. There's one entitlement, so it's just one red bar. Again there's a period here where, when stock sizes are low, there'll be a Nisga'a fishery, and there's a period when there'll be no fisheries below a specific return size. Then, of course, you have the expansion of the other fisheries as the stocks increase.

Here you'll see it's the opposite picture between the years. Not all salmon stocks go up and down in size at the same time. The sockeye run was larger in 2000 but the chinook run was smaller. In 2001 we have one of the bigger returns of chinook to the Nass.

To give a brief description of the joint management committee and its process, it was put in place essentially to facilitate the fisheries component of the treaty. It has, as its representatives, two individuals from each of the Nisga'a, British Columbia, and Canada. It oversees all the assessment, management, and harvest planning functions, including the post-season accounting. It acts as a body that works jointly among the three orders of government.

It also, at the end of the overseeing process, provides specific recommendations to the ministers, both provincial and federal.

• 0930

If we look at its annual cycle, it starts with the Nisga'a annual fishing plan, which has been approved by the JFMC each year and submitted to the minister for approval in May. It spawned off a committee to do the technical work—the joint technical committee—so it could be done efficiently by the people who understand the fishery. They take over and submit reports on the pre-season harvest planning, the in-season management, and post-season accounting, which then go back up to the JFMC for post-season review.

The post-season review process in the first year, which is the only one we've completed so far, took one day in November and was finalized in March in an additional meeting. Between the beginning meeting and the post-season review, there were essentially three meetings in the entire year. In fact the first fishing plan was approved in a conference call. It took about an hour and was actually approved on May 11—the date the treaty was implemented.

Here is a list of the key points in evaluation: the fact that we have a cooperative and efficient planning process and the Nisga'a annual fishing plans have been approved as proposed by the JFMC; in-season management has resulted in an orderly fishery with few violations by Nisga'a fishermen; there is continual monitoring by the Nisga'a fisheries program staff and Department of Fisheries and Oceans enforcement officers throughout the entire fishery; there is daily escapement information.

This information was not available prior to the initiation of the recent negotiations and treaty. These things were a direct result of the treaty process—getting reliable daily escapement information. Weekly catch reports in the same way were a product of that process, and there is frequent communication between DFO and the Nisga'a fisheries program staff throughout the season.

Then, as mentioned before, there is post-season review and accounting—complete accounting for all harvests—that gets reviewed and audited by DFO. There have been no disputes between the parties on any accounting or stock assessment process.

Here I'm going to go into a little bit more detail about the actual program. You'll get a feel for the extent of it and the components.

These are the four main components of the assessment program. It covers these four species—sockeye, chinook, coho, and steelhead. The province is quite happy, because they get information on steelhead from this system. I mentioned the two fish wheels in Gitwinksihlkw and the four fish wheels now in Grease Harbour. In each of these fish are tagged. We use them as index fisheries much like other test fisheries done on the coast by DFO. We also act as a platform for biosampling, for getting scale data, age data, and size data.

There were captures obtained in these fish wheels that give us information on the abundance of fish, the tagging rates in the lower wheels, so we have an in-season tool to tell us whether our wheels are efficient or not so efficient in a given year. Efficiencies can change dramatically with water flows and different times of the year. This recapture information is vital, and it's unique to salmon fisheries on the B.C. coast.

The Chair: Can you show that somehow later, Karl?

Mr. Karl English: Yes.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Karl English: Then further, there's the Meziaden. As I mentioned, there's a fishway, so we get more recapture information. Then up in the spawning grounds there are more surveys.

• 0935

Here's a picture of one of the fish wheels located in the Nisga'a community of Gitwinksihlkw, very close to Harry Nyce's house, so as director of the fisheries program he can oversee fish wheel operations quite well.

This is a more detailed picture of the fish wheel itself located right next to the shoreline. These are rocks right here. As you can see, this is right up close to the shore.

The theory behind fish wheels and why they work is that in a place where there's a lot of velocity in the current offshore, the fish are forced close to the bank. They're swimming up close to the bank, and so even though this wheel is only 12 feet wide in the baskets, those 12 feet can contain a lot of the fish that are migrating upriver. In fact this year, with six of these fish wheels, we caught over 25% of the chinook salmon that migrated up the Nass. Most of those fish were tagged and released, but it was an incredibly effective tool this past year.

The way it works is the current drives the wheel. It is not powered by gasoline, like most fishing vessels; it's powered by current. It rotates in this direction, and this basket is open on the front. There's a basket coming out of the water here, and as the fish migrates upstream it enters the downstream side of the basket. The water is dark, so it doesn't see this thing coming, and before it knows it's captured, it's being raised out of the water.

As it's raised out, it slides down and goes along on the mesh and then on the plywood slide. It slides down here into a live box, which is about fifteen feet long and about four feet deep and holds the fish in live and excellent condition. Nobody has handled it; nobody has touched it at this point.

The fish stay in there until the crews—as you see, these are all Nisga'a crews—come out and work on the wheels daily, tagging, releasing, and in some cases harvesting the abundant species.

The Chair: Peter, you had a question.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: He just answered the question about the handling of the fish itself.

Mr. Karl English: There are six of these wheels that look just like this. They were essentially designed in this form back in 1993 and have been operating since 1993. They're patterned after a Columbia River wheel that operated back at the turn of the century. Now they've been reintroduced to a number of other river systems. Nisga'a-designed wheels are now being used on the Copper River in Alaska, on the Skagit River in Washington State, on the Roanoke River in North Carolina, and throughout B.C. They're on rivers in the central coast. You may have heard of the Owikeno River. It, the Fraser River, of course, and the Skeena in British Columbia all have wheels essentially designed from this program.

They are definitely one of the most effective selective-harvest tools out there, and this gives you an idea of just how effective they are in the Nass. The Nass does seem to be one of the best places to operate fish wheels. These are the catches just from 2001. In the six wheels you can see for sockeye, I think, and coho a lot of fish. Even the chinook numbers I mentioned—12,000 chinook—represent about a quarter of the run.

A harvesting system involves, of course, to some extent the fish wheels, but it also, to a very large extent, involves management of the Nisga'a gill net fishery, both in river—this is a shore-set river net and this is an ocean gill net vessel near the mouth of the Nass.

These gill net fisheries are essentially the domestic fishery. The communal sale fishery—the second type here that has been defined—involves charter seine vessels and fish wheels. It's called a “communal sale” because Nisga'a Lisims government is responsible for executing those fisheries and controlling what is done with the proceeds from those fisheries. It doesn't go to individuals.

The third fishery here is “individual sale”, and it means just what it says. It means individuals going out there, catching fish, and selling them to Nisga'a Lisims government landing sites.

So there's complete control on all three of these fisheries.

• 0940

These are some of the harvest controls mentioned. I won't go into a lot of detail on any of them because it would be more than you have time for. But the treaty and the fishing plans are the important ones, the key ones defining what goes into the Nisga'a act and regulations. We have an enforcement agreement and now we also have a prosecution agreement—thanks to Jim working with the federal prosecution people.

It covers beginning to end. This picture shows one of the landing sites. All the fish harvested for commercial sale have to go through four landing sites on the Nass River, so there's complete control. Any fish not going through those four landing sites could be seized or taken by someone else, if they're being sold without going through these landing sites.

The Chair: Is that true even for the domestic fishery?

Mr. Karl English: The domestic fishery doesn't have to go through the landing sites, but they're accounted for with a catch monitoring program where fishermen are interviewed throughout the whole fishing seasons.

Let me give you a brief summary of the regulations. Each fisherman has to have a licence issued by Nisga'a Lisims government. The fishery has to occur in the Nass area, which is the blue shaded area on this map. This area includes essentially the whole Nass River plus Observatory Inlet and parts of Portland down here in the ocean. This blue area is defined as the Nass area. The red line, by the way, was actually the Nisga'a traditional territory.

All harvesting must occur within the Nass area. Most of it occurs right now, obviously, down in the Lower Nass. The fishing gear must be marked. Regulations are also specific to species. While we're talking a lot about salmon here, there are also regulations on the fishing season and size limits for crabs and oolichan. I won't go into a lot of detail on those since they're only domestic fisheries and not nearly as intensive as the salmon ones.

As for the annual assessments and catch audit process, it may be a little bit repetitious to say it, but it's important to recognize how vital it actually is that escapement estimates are reliable and stock assessments are rigorous. If you don't have these, you don't know when to open your fisheries, and when you have, you don't know whether you have achieved your goals in terms of harvest and escapement. The issue of complete catch accounting is vital to the treaty process, so that no fish goes unaccounted for, as well as published reports for people to review this information and distribute it to other agencies.

Now I'll walk you through a couple of fishing seasons here—because it's only been two years—and show you how some of this process works. On the bottom axis is the date. These are day by day through the fishing season. On the left-hand side is the number of fish caught in the Nisga'a fish wheels. This is the number of fish used to monitor the size of the run coming by on that particular day.

On this side we have the estimated total escapement. We have broken into a minimum forecast escapement and a maximum—that's the red line and the green line here. So at every point in the season we are trying to estimate what the minimum return to the Nass for this species is and what could be the maximum. This gives us an idea of just how much uncertainty we have, as well as how many fish we have to harvest. The white line here indicates the escapement goal for the location of the fish wheels. That's our target.

The run is progressing here. There's a gap in the run because of high water flows, which eliminates the ability of the fish to go up river. After you have these high water flows you frequently get a very large pulse of fish, which shoots your estimates. The green and red lines are well above our escapement goal for the end of the year. We add a few more days of the season and the escapement goal forecast is flattening out, which it often does at that time of year, and the run is starting to decline in numbers off this peak.

• 0945

If we take it through the rest of the season, the run has continued to drop in size, but it still remains above the escapement goal at the end of the year. It is dropping mostly because it was high here. And DFO and the Alaskans were aware that the run was strong, so they fished the fishery hard in this period. That decreases the amount in escapement, so the projections go down. This information can be used in 2000 to allow for more fishing to occur than would have occurred if we didn't know what the run size was.

The Nisga'a fishery is fairly complicated because you have these three different types of fisheries—domestic, communal sale, and individual sale—and you have this run-size target. This is the forecasted return to Canada and this is the Nisga'a allocation based on that. At the beginning of the season the target was 95,000 fish, based on the pre-season run estimate. This line representing the cumulative catch will move up as the season goes on.

If we add in a few more weeks, we see that early on it was only a domestic fishery, and then when we had that big pulse of fish and it looked like there were lots of fish in the river, the individual sale fisheries were executed—and they made up a very large chunk of that daily catch, because that was a lot of effort going out on a specific day. In this year you could count the number of individual sale fisheries by the number of blue lines on the chart.

The communal sale fishery this year was made up entirely of the fish taken in the fish wheels. This would reflect a portion of the fish wheel catch taken for harvest. As the season progressed to the end, the cumulative catch moved up and matched in with the forecasted Nisga'a share, and the end result essentially was that the Nisga'a harvested pretty much exactly what their share of the harvest was.

As these lines on the chart start to approach each other, the individual sale fisheries are closed and only allow domestic and communal sales to continue in the latter part of the season.

The bottom line for the year 2000 was—we have it here for sockeye—that the escapement goal was achieved. But it was also achieved for four of the salmon species, including coho. This was very important because it's been a depressed stock in the north and throughout B.C. for a few years. The only species for which the production goal wasn't achieved was chum—and production goal means the optimum number of fish for the entire water shed, for the entire Nass area.

The minimum escapement level means that no fisheries are allowed below this level. There was very little Nisga'a harvest of chum salmon this year. This is low because the run has been low for chum salmon. We're in the rebuilding process for that species.

In terms of the Nisga'a allocation and how it was distributed by species, on this axis is the percent of the entire Nisga'a allocation. These numbers in absolute numbers are very different; a lot more sockeye were harvested than chinook, for example. But as a percent of the allocation, they're very close to their percent. They're under on pink salmon because this year there was not enough pink allocation to warrant a seine fishery, so the cost of catching those fish would have exceeded the value, and they weren't harvested.

The chinook harvest was slightly higher than the Nisga'a allocation, but there was a strong run and it didn't harvest into escapement.

• 0950

For both the coho and chum species the entitlement wasn't harvested for conservation purposes. The Nisga'a chose not to harvest in favour of putting those fish on the spawning grounds; that was an active decision. It looked at the entire salmon allocation in terms of what we call sockeye equivalents. That means converting all these fish into an equivalent to one sockeye or several sockeye. The allocation matched pretty much bang on what was defined by the treaty. So all in all, we had a pretty strong management success the first year.

We were met with many different challenges in the second year, 2001. We were expecting a smaller return of sockeye. As it turned out, it came a little bit late. On the graph you can see that the early catches on the fish wheel here were fairly low compared to what you saw on the other graph, and the escapement levels were below the red line. The minimum forecast was definitely below the escapement goal. The green was pretty close to it, but we had good indications that there were a lot of fish out in the ocean from the commercial fisheries, and so we proceeded with fisheries early in the season.

These fish did show up later—you can see a big pulse of fish here. Again, we had a flood in this period, much later than usual. Usually the big high-water events occur in late June and early July, so this was one of the latest high-water events we've seen in the last 10 years. The fish came in after that and the forecasts moved up. We're very close to and staying above the goal through the latter part of the season.

If we look at the harvest picture, again the individual sale fisheries were the largest components of the fishery, but with a steady amount of domestic harvest and communal sale from the wheels throughout the year. The line here showing the cumulative catch builds up and comes very close to the projected minimum allocation. At this point in time, the manager, Harry, decided not to open any more individual sale fisheries, because that could push them up over the allocation, and we moved to a period where we had only the communal sale and domestic harvest fisheries.

In fact, communal sales were stopped right when these lines seem to converge with the bottom. The concern was that they might be harvesting more fish. They moved up together. Then Alaska started fishing hard late in the year, so we didn't get the latter part of the run that we were expecting. We only had domestic harvests occurring, but the run didn't materialize so the Nisga'a allocation was slightly above the target level for the year, but not by a lot, again.

This gives you an idea of the magnitude of the actual harvest in the different fisheries. The bottom axis shows you in thousands of fish, so roughly 75,000 sockeye taken, more in the individual sale than the other two, but a fairly good balance. The pink salmon fishery is not as highly targeted for domestic.... This is all the same charter, the same boat fisheries, where an individual has chartered to go out and catch these in Portland Inlet. There is also a by-catch of pink in the individual sales that also gets sold.

There is only a domestic fishery on chinook, none of the other sale fisheries. This was the first year for coho because of a very strong run of coho in 2001. It actually had a very successful communal sale, fish-wheel-harvested coho, and individual sale. This coho allocation was caught in just a one-day opening. Again, chum domestic was very small and the communal sale component only occurred as a by-catch in this pink fishery, but it's still a very small component of the pink fishery.

• 0955

In terms of how it looked over time in the returns of Nass sockeye, this is what it looked like before the fish wheel management system was implemented in 1994. Fish wheels were actually put in the river in 1992-93, but the government wasn't completely confident that they were providing the right information, so they refused to follow it. They used the traditional method. These were very large years, and we essentially forwent much of the catch. All the fish above this line could have been harvested because this escapement goal is really all we need for the spawners.

In these earlier years, we had clearly taken too much in the fishery because while the runs were above this escapement goal, too many were harvested. So we had a problem: harvesting too much in low years and not enough in high years.

In the years since the treaty process, 1994 to present, fish wheel management has been used. You can see the comparison between how high these red bars are, what's actually been the escapement, and the goal; we've been very close to meeting the goals in every year.

For chinook returns, again due to the fish wheel program and some telemetry studies started in 1992-93 and continued on, reliable information on chinook returns are grey because they're not adjusted for the efficiencies. There is very little information on how reliable this data is, so really the time series starts in 1992 for chinook. This shows you the very large return, much larger than we've seen in any other year that returned in 2001.

For coho, there is again a lot of variability in returns of coho from this very high year in 1994 down to the coho crisis years in 1997-98, when everybody was raising concerns and closing fisheries on the west coast.

Now we're looking at coho returns that are above the escapement goals for the Nass area. These fish return on a three-year cycle, so we have three strong brood years of coho out there. We're probably looking at strong coho returns for the foreseeable future in the Nass.

To summarize this whole thing, this shows you a picture of some of the fishermen. They're landing their catch, and it's being counted and weighed at one of the sites. Essentially, the program is working as it was laid out and planned.

We have achievement of escapement goals for all Nass area stocks. We're just achieving the minimum goals for chum, but we're talking measures to get closer for chum. Allocation is harvested from productive stocks, so we're targeting the strong stocks and protecting the weak stocks. We have an efficient and effective JFMC process—the Joint Fisheries Management Commission.

We have reliable in-season information for fisheries management, whose importance cannot be overemphasized. If you don't have the information, you really have no hope of managing the resource. We have effective regulations and enforcement, so people are actually complying with the fishery openings, and we have complete accounting and no disputes between the parties.

So the prospects for 2002 look as though we're going to have healthy returns of all salmon species in the core programs. These programs are supported through the treaty process, through the Lisims Fisheries Conservation Trust and treaty implementation dollars.

Right now I think they hire between 80 and 100 Nisga'a to work in programs in the Nass on fisheries management and stock assessment. They get technical advice from people like myself and from a few others, but there are very few non-Nisga'a involved. It's a virtually all-Nisga'a program, and I have nothing but congratulations to give to the people we work with, first nations and other people throughout B.C., Alaska, and Washington State. The Nisga'a are some of the finest individuals we have found anywhere. In fact, we've been fortunate enough to bring them into other programs and get them involved in the Alaska studies because they're so good.

• 1000

As mentioned earlier, it looks as though we'll probably have one of the largest returns of sockeye to the Nass next year, so there'll be lots of fish for everyone to harvest. It will be a direct product of the escapement that has occurred during this program.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Karl.

Peter, you had a question first, and then we'll go to the regular rounds.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Mr. Chairman, actually I have several questions, so I'll wait my turn in order.

The Chair: All right.

Mr. Burton.

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

I'd just like to welcome especially Joe Gosnell and Harry Nyce. We're old buddies from way back. I think we have a bit of history among us. I sat on the regional board of Kitimat-Stikine with Harry for many years.

I was certainly aware of this whole process as it was developing. We didn't always agree on things, but at the end of the day, I must say, I'm very impressed with what I saw here today. It appears to be working very well, and I think you deserve a lot of credit—certainly from what I've seen so far, anyway.

It's very interesting, and hopefully we can all learn from this and perhaps put it into operation on other rivers with other species. There's a lot of concern about the whole west coast fishery, and perhaps this is something that can be utilized on other rivers. That remains to be seen, but certainly it's very interesting.

Joseph, you mentioned in your opening remarks something about the economic benefits for your people in the Nass Valley. I wonder if you could expand on that a bit as to just what has actually happened in terms of employment, your workforce, and so on in the valley regarding the fishery.

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: Thank you, Andy.

I'll allow Harry to respond to that. He is responsible for all the different aspects of the fisheries programs we have. As indicated by Karl, Harry oversees the harvest and the management in not only the inland fisheries but the marine portion as well.

The Chair: Harry.

Mr. Harry Nyce: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Andy. Good morning.

The first year, in 2000, we had a very successful fishing year. Just under $1 million was received by our people at our individual sales, and that went directly to Nisga'a individuals and families, who put it in their accounts and also improved their housing, their social conditions, and the education of their children. That was last year.

This year the price of salmon was reduced, but again we looked at about $750,000 that went into the pockets of Nisga'a as economic benefits for them individually. We had, as Karl mentioned, just under 100 Nisga'a working as technicians and associate technicians on the river; they were monitoring, enforcing, and also doing assessment work. We probably have a payroll of just under $200,000 for those folks over the months of July and August.

Mr. Andy Burton: In terms of the value of the catch, I guess it would be the dollars from the communal catch that would fund the hiring of these people. Is that how it works? Can you just explain how the program is self-supporting, please?

Mr. Harry Nyce: We started out with the aboriginal fishery strategy from Fisheries and Oceans; that was when we started the program in 1992. We had just under $1 million per year, which we had been successful in getting from the federal government. Since then, during negotiations we have been able to negotiate a transition. We're still receiving some funds from the federal government with respect to the operation of the fisheries.

We established a Nisga'a Lisims Fisheries Conservation Trust for the salmon—$10 million came from Canada, $3 million came from Nisga'a Treaty funds, and we're hoping to get B.C. funds as well to increase that fund.

• 1005

We established a core group of directors for the trust, business folks, including one retired Fisheries and Oceans person. No Nisga'a are involved in that trust at all, except to provide advice and recommendations to them on the operation.

We hope to have the funds available to us next year, and from the $13 million, which they invested in various areas, we're looking at in excess of $750,000.

In regard to our fisheries program, it depends on the price. If it's a good price, we'll get close to the funding we require—just under $1 million—to run our programs. But in general, all the proceeds from the commercial program go back into the fisheries program. So between $200,000 and $300,000 of actual proceeds go back into the program for our fisheries.

Mr. Andy Burton: Just so you understand, I'm asking these questions so that everybody understands how it works and is clear on it.

I have another question. Are there any other commercial fisheries on or in the mouth of the Nass, or is it strictly a Nisga'a program?

Mr. Harry Nyce: No. When we open the fisheries program, for example, we sit down with the Fisheries and Oceans technicians in Prince Rupert and collaborate with them. When they have an opening, for example, on a Monday of a given week, they would open on a Monday for so many hours and close Monday evening, and then we would open Wednesday for our fishery, and it goes back and forth, giving everybody a balanced opportunity for a fishery.

Mr. Andy Burton: I understand DFO and Prince Rupert get a fair bit of information from the Alaska fishing community. Is that a fact, and if so, do you factor that in too? Do you find it to be good information?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes, we do. In fact, LGL, which Karl is vice-president of, has a company in Alaska, and there's collaboration between the workings in that area as well. We're fortunate in having a company that works in both areas. We receive information almost on a weekly basis. And I'm fortunate to have been appointed to the northern panel of the commission this year. The minister appointed me, and we have our first meeting coming up in January.

Mr. Andy Burton: Congratulations.

In terms of the markets for the fish, does the commercial fishery, other than Nisga'a, sell some of the commercial catch to you? And how and where do you market your catch?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Initially, when we had the prospect of the treaty being implemented, we sent out a letter of interest because we knew we were going to get an allocation. We had something like over 50 individual companies apply with an interest of doing business with us. At the end of the day, they were shortlisted to eight companies. Joe and the other senior officers looked through them and did the shortlisting. Canfisco from British Columbia, is now our partner. We signed a five-year contract with them and they market our fish.

So we participate with respect to receiving the fish, as Karl indicated, in four landing sites, and our people deliver to us only, no one else.

Mr. Andy Burton: Do you buy any of the commercial catch that's non-Nisga'a, or does that all go to Prince Rupert or elsewhere?

Mr. Harry Nyce: No, it all goes to Prince Rupert. We don't get involved in that area yet.

Mr. Andy Burton: Does yours all go by road then? Does some go to packers or straight down to Prince Rupert?

Mr. Harry Nyce: At the mouth of the Nass River we have a packer that transports to Prince Rupert, and the three other local villages transport by road to Prince Rupert.

Mr. Andy Burton: Thank you.

I think my colleague, James, would like to speak, if we have some time left.

The Chair: Yes. Thanks, Mr. Burton.

James, you have a couple of minutes, but we'll come back to you in a second round anyway.

Mr. James Lunney (Nanaimo—Alberni, Canadian Alliance): Okay. I have a whole series of questions, but I'll ask just one in the short time here.

I'm interested in those fish wheels. It seems like quite a fascinating operation. It seems to me, tied up to the shore like that it's only covering a small aspect of a large river. How is it you're able to catch so many? Do the salmon swim down only one little strip along the shore?

Could somebody comment on that to help us out with it?

Mr. Karl English: It works only in specific locations on these rivers. There's a narrowing in the river at Gitwinksihlkw, near the community, that was caused years ago when there was a lava flow that forced the river across the valley and channelled it through a narrow stretch about 200 to 300 metres wide. The water flows very rapidly away from the bank, so the fish choose to go up the easiest route. They don't want to spend all their energy fighting the current in the middle of the river.

• 1010

So where the back eddies occur is right along the side of the river. The river is very dark and murky from all the glacial runoff, so you can't readily see the fish, unless it's a very large run, when you'll see them finning up the side. But you generally don't see them right in that location. And they don't see the fish wheel either. These wheels are very close to shore. The fish encounter them without detecting them, because of the dark water. They'll be running up in literally the first two or three feet.

In some locations, like the ones you have in Alaska, we find that almost all the catch is deposited in the shore-side basket, because the fish are being caught on the shore side of the wheel. in just two or three feet. The outer part of the wheel may not even be catching a lot of fish.

Mr. James Lunney: That's amazing.

In terms of the domestic, communal, and individual sale we referred to, I noticed in another slide we talked about a sport catch. Would that be considered under the domestic end of things?

I noticed, with the nice brochure that's been circulated here, you seem to be developing a pretty good sports industry down there. Could you comment on how that is going? When sport fishermen come up, do they have to purchase a licence from Nisga'a, or is it a provincial fishing licence? How does that work?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes. Our own sport fishers, Nisga'a sport fishers, are part of the domestic catch.

The other sport fishers still have to apply through the provincial authorities. We run by what we call the laws of general application under the fish program, under the provincial government. They have to apply. In fact, we have in excess of 18 angling guide outfitters who still continue to operate in the Nisga'a Valley, including the core lands. So they can still operate.

The lodge operates as a totally independent business, and it's flourishing.

Mr. James Lunney: Is the lodge a Nisga'a-run operation? It appears to be.

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes. It's owned by the Nisga'a Nation.

Mr. James Lunney: Isn't that excellent. You're developing a nice industry that way as well.

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes.

The Chair: Thanks, Mr. Lunney. We'll be back to you.

Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy (Matapédia—Matane, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I'd like to welcome you and to thank you for being here this morning, and for your outstanding presentation. I congratulate you also for the good work. With a little humour, I would say that I realized that your run periods coincide with my birthday. So it may be an omen. Maybe, as a sports fisher, I will go to your place one of these days and I will have my picture on your brochure, as Mr. Chairman said earlier.

You touched earlier on the subject of my question. You talked among other things about the level of monitoring, about overseeing and monitoring. In my riding, there is a salmon river; it's the Matapédia, of course. In fact, we have two and one of our main concerns is exactly related to monitoring, particularly as far as poaching is concerned.

When you say that there are 100 people of your community who work within the overseeing process, do you have on the part of Fisheries and Oceans—you touched on the subject but did not get into details—enough freedom of movement to enable you to act when you come across poachers on the river? Do you have the necessary powers to act? Does Fisheries and Oceans work in cooperation with you on this? To be more precise, do you have a free hand to control poaching?

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Nyce.

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes, thank you.

You're quite welcome to come and fish at the lodge when it opens. The dates are on the brochure.

We do have a process for that—the cards, Mr. Chairman, that you saw. They're issued to all our Nisga'a fishers. They're identifications. The way our monitoring system works is when we approach we have what you'd call “hails”. You just go up to the vessel and say “I'd like to see your Nisga'a fishing licence and your Nisga'a fishing permit”. If anyone does not have this, a Nisga'a person, they're not allowed to fish. They're sent home.

If there's a non-Nisga'a person fishing, they're automatically sent home anyway, because the fishery is for Nisga'a only, and in a period of time, say eight hours per day, when we open. After that, it's open for sport fishers.

• 1015

But the controls are in place with these documents. That's how we are able to secure proper monitoring and management.

Mr. James Aldridge (Legal Counsel, Nisga'a Tribal Council): Mr. Chairman, if I may, perhaps I would supplement the answer to this extent.

The slide that Karl had on earlier, that showed all the enforcement rules, stressed that those laws are Nisga'a laws, enacted by Nisga'a government. So the primary legal mechanism for governing this fishery is in fact laws passed by Nisga'a government.

But under the treaty, federal and provincial officials have the authority to enforce Nisga'a laws. The long-term plan is that the Nisga'a fish and wildlife branch, which Harry is the head of, will have all the resources—they have the authority now, but they don't have the resources or the expertise—to enforce fully to the level that everyone wishes it to be enforced to. So an enforcement agreement was entered into with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, under which, essentially, charges will be laid by federal fisheries officials, DFO officers, but those charges will be laid under Nisga'a laws, not under the Fisheries Act.

A further agreement has been negotiated with the Department of Justice for the prosecution of any offences. Hopefully there won't be many, but there no doubt will be some. Offences contrary to Nisga'a law will be prosecuted by the Department of Justice under the terms of this agreement.

So it's an interesting coming together of jurisdictions, because, as I say, the primary legislative authority on enforcement is Nisga'a law, but for the life of these agreements, while the Nisga'a develop the capacity and the expertise for enforcement, the enforcement and prosecution are being done by federal officials.

The Chair: Thank you, Jim.

Mr. Roy.

[Translation]

Mr. Jean-Yves Roy: I have one last question. Is the intervention of Fisheries and Oceans at the level of prosecution well accepted by the community anyway? My question should be in the first place is the fact that Fisheries and Oceans or the Department of Justice intervene in the process well accepted by the members of the community?

[English]

The Chair: Mr. Aldridge or Mr. Nyce.

Mr. Harry Nyce: The enforcement agreement was agreed to by the Lisims government, and our people are informed by leaflets or brochures that we send out to all our fishers.

When they get these cards, they're handed the regulations; they're handed the offences. We have one person who travels with Fisheries and Oceans personnel on the river. This Nisga'a person knows the people on the river, and they're readily accepted with respect to the authorities that are being issued.

Yes, there were some minor charges. We have a regulation, for example, that there must be two people on a boat for safety. The people on the boats must have life jackets and radios. These are all safety regulations. It's minor things. If they don't have those, they're given a notice saying they must have them, and they have to be sent back to shore. Those are the kinds of violations, none serious.

The Chair: Okay.

We'll go to Paul Steckle in a minute.

Mr. Stoffer, you're leaving, but you have a couple of questions.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Yes. I apologize for coming in late, and now I have to leave early.

There are a lot of concerns about aquaculture salmon escaping up the rivers. Have you experienced any concerns in that regard, regarding the Nass?

Mr. Harry Nyce: We have no aquaculture problems at all. They're not too close to us.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Also, have other first nations groups within British Columbia or throughout Canada come up to your area of the world and followed the procedures and asked advice about what they could do with their local governments?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes, as Joe mentioned earlier, we've had several visits. In fact, a number of people come during the fishing season. We encourage them to come. During the actual operation last summer, in June, July, and August, we had about half a dozen groups come through to watch our operations.

• 1020

As Karl mentioned, two of our staff usually go out and, when we are requested to do so, establish a wheel on a given river. They go out to provide that service.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: This is my final question. I know the relationship of the previous government of B.C. was fairly good. How is the relationship with the current B.C. government?

Mr. Harry Nyce: We're just finding that out right now. It seems to be mellow. It's okay.

Mr. Peter Stoffer: Okay.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I apologize for leaving early.

The Chair: Thank you.

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: Mr. Chairman—

The Chair: Go ahead, Mr. Gosnell.

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: —in further response to Peter's question with respect to the relationship we have with the provincial government, it's our long-range objective to have a working relationship with all provincial departments, whether it's fisheries, tourism, education, or health. That is our objective, and we plan, as indicated by the treaty, to abide by what we have clearly stated. That applies also to all federal departments, regardless of what political party may be holding power. Whether it's federal or provincial, that's our objective.

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

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gosnell.

We go to Paul Steckle, who's an avid fisherman, but I don't think he's caught one of those 250-pound halibut yet.

Paul.

Mr. Paul Steckle (Huron—Bruce, Lib.): Thank you, gentlemen. It's good to see you back again. Some of us have seen many of you before.

Harry, I would just say to you before we begin that you have an awful nice place there. Do you take private people in, as a bit of a tourist area there? It would be a nice place to come to sometime.

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes, and you're welcome.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I don't know whether the rates are the same as the rates in here, but—

Mr. Harry Nyce: They're negotiable.

Mr. Paul Steckle: Anyhow, we're starting off in a good place.

I have a lot of questions, only to put these on the table because I think it's important that we understand.

In the area of management, what processes have really changed since implementation of the Nisga'a Treaty? That's pretty broad. Can we perhaps have some short comments on that? What has really changed?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Thank you.

The things that have changed are these documents. We never carried these before under the previous one because, regarding the aboriginal fishery, under the Constitution, as they state, any first nations person can go out and harvest. But under our treaty, this has changed with respect to regulating our fishery program and also having the credentials that identify us as participating in a Nass River fishery.

Mr. Paul Steckle: Do you have something to add?

Mr. James Aldridge: I would like to add to that and talk about the things Karl covered in the presentation.

One of the most profound things that has changed is that the river is being managed. Prior to the management techniques that arose exactly because of, first, the negotiation and now the implementation of the Nisga'a Treaty, there was very little management being done. So all that kind of data that Karl showed you was simply not available before. DFO was not doing it.

Now the Nisga'a are doing it, but providing that information to DFO, and so the entire management of the river is being done much more intensively, much more scientifically than it was before.

The other big area that has changed in terms of management really refers back in some way to la question de M. Roy: do people accept fisheries officers? Well, before the treaty, they had no choice. The fisheries officers would simply arrive periodically, and they were outsiders. Now it's cooperative. Everybody is working together. So you have the DFO officers, the enforcement officers, but also the DFO fisheries managers and planners working directly with Nisga'a people themselves. So there isn't so much a sense of fisheries management being imposed upon the Nisga'a Nation. Instead, it's the Nisga'a Nation participating in a cooperative way in the management, and that's the other very profound change that has taken place.

Perhaps Karl would have other things to add to that.

Mr. Karl English: The comment I would add is that I think the process of negotiating the treaty brought the parties much closer together and built that capacity. Through communications, the relationship between DFO and Prince Rupert especially, but DFO right to Ottawa, has improved dramatically over the years. It's that development of trust and respect. I think those are the two things that have made a huge difference.

• 1025

Now when Nisga'a fisheries managers phone up and say they have a problem, that the stocks are low or it looks as if the runs aren't as strong here or there, there's action taken. It's not, oh well, we'll double-check and triple-check that and see whether you're right.

Action is taken not only in B.C. but in Alaska, because Alaskans now view the Canadian program as a legitimate stock assessment program. They've closed their fisheries in years when we've said it's not a good run, guys, and you have to back off. That is really the protection the fish now have from being overharvested.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I understand the communal aspect, and I understand the sport fishery and that kind of thing. On the commercial fishing side of it, who is the beneficiary of the spoils of that effort and who owns the licence?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Right now we have a partnership with the Northern Native Fishing Corporation. There are some 83 licences we use, and Joe, I, and about half a dozen other Nisga'a have our own licences from before. There have been no commercial licences purchased or commercial licences given to us by the Government of Canada. We have not received any at all. We're just working through what we had before, and the government is now considering the purchase of licences. But the state of the fishing industry is such that there's a wait-and-see attitude on that right now.

Mr. Paul Steckle: As to the whole issue of fishing and the effort that's put in, what about those people who fish during the communal and ceremonial periods? Is there any attempt made by people...? I realize laws are meant to be broken, and no matter how well intended our efforts are, someone will break the laws. Is that a problem with people trying to do commercial business on the ceremonial side of things, because this happens across the country? You've had a good story this morning. I'm just wondering how you deal with that.

Mr. Harry Nyce: We have had two or three occasions when individuals tried to do that. Because, as I indicated, we're partners with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, we have one of our members with Fisheries and Oceans. They're there, and we have occasional checks over a period during the fishing season. If someone is caught, as director I can pull their licence. If they're Nisga'a, I can pull their licence and give them a fine, a suspension for whatever time the government deems necessary, or whatever. That's how we're handling it.

We've never had any occasion yet to do that. For the most part there seems to be some acceptance of what we're doing by way of management of our system. As I say, there are two or three who are still trying to two-pole or something like that, but there haven't been any serious cases.

Mr. Paul Steckle: As to the policing effort you're putting forward to ensure safeguards against these kinds of things, do you feel you have adequate people out there to ensure the security of your agreement?

Mr. Harry Nyce: We've attempted to over the years, ever since we began the process of partnership with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to implement a training program for enforcement officers. We have not been successful. That's still lacking right now, and we're attempting to provide that. We have our technicians, as I say, with Fisheries and Oceans, but we need the credentialled individuals. We have been attempting to secure funds for that, and to date we haven't been successful. Nonetheless, we're doing what we can to achieve that enforcement.

Mr. Paul Steckle: I know this is going to be a tough one, but you can maybe give some guidance on this one. What lesson would you have for the Government of Canada and for other native communities within this country in terms of treaty settlements? You have been the leaders in this area. What one lesson would you have for us in coming to further conclusions of settlements in this country?

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: I think there is more than one lesson that can be learned from the treaty we have entered into with not only the Government of Canada but the provincial Government of British Columbia. It's different when people recognize that they own a part of the resource. We were just talking about enforcement and saying that laws were meant to be broken. People take a different view of a resource if they know they own a portion of that resource, and they will safeguard it for their benefit. Why should we abuse something that belongs to us? But because we are human, there are always those individuals who will abuse a right, whether it's with our fisheries, whether you're driving along a highway, or anything of that nature.

• 1030

One of the most important lessons that can be learned, not only by the federal and provincial governments but by other aboriginal people, is that you can enter into a workable agreement. It's there. The will has to be there on the part of all parties, I think. If it's not there, then it will not work. Our people willingly entered into the Nisga'a Treaty. A large majority of our people voted to approve the contents of the document, so we know that the main portion of our nation has accepted its contents.

The challenge we have today is to make it work, and work not only in fisheries, forestry, tourism, health, education, and the financial requirements of reporting. These are all things we have willingly agreed to do.

In addition to what I've mentioned, Mr. Chair, there is a tripartite report being finalized as we speak. It will be available to all interested parties, to the federal and provincial governments and to individual Canadians, if they want to see what has transpired since May 11, 2000. The three parties to the agreement are finalizing the implementation report, and hopefully that will be made available quite shortly.

There is another aspect for the committee's information, Mr. Chair. Previously we had our old website, ntc.bc.ca, which is still in operation. We now have a new website that should be online or should be going online shortly. It's www.nisgaalisims.ca, and everything our governing body has legislated by way of laws and what we have done as of May 11, 2000, will be on that site. We're trying to provide as much information as possible to the general public as to what it is we're doing. We think it's important that Canadians in general know what we're doing, whether the treaty is working the way we had anticipated and whether or not the sky has fallen.

Fortunately, the sky has not fallen. Things are working out relatively well. Unfortunately, in the northwestern part of the province we're caught up in this whole forestry downturn that is occurring, so many things impact on how things are working. But I believe there can be more than one lesson learned from the Nisga'a Treaty.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Gosnell and all.

Mr. Lunney.

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

Can you tell us about non-native fishermen on the Nass? There are other people not of Nisga'a origin, I imagine, in the area. Can you tell us, did they receive allocation—we saw some indication—above Nisga'a catches? How is that working out? Are there domestic fisheries there for non-Nisga'a? Are there commercial openings for non-Nisga'a in the area, and how is that working out?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Thank you.

The non-Nisga'a fishers are able to harvest commercially. As I indicated, we work with Fisheries and Oceans for that commercial opportunity. For example, if they open Monday, everyone fishes, including the Nisga'a, with commercial licences, and when they're closed, everyone's on the beach. But for our fishery, there's no one except our own people fishing there.

For the domestic fishery, when it's open, they're able to secure a permit from Fisheries and Oceans as usual. They're able to come and fish in the Nass, subject to getting a permit from Fisheries and Oceans. So nothing's changed; they're still well able to do that.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you.

Can you tell us about Kincolith? There's a bit of a concern in that realm. I understood there was some concern about that community. Can you tell us how that's working out?

• 1035

Mr. Harry Nyce: As to Kincolith, they've participated. They're basically able to provide us with important information regarding the fishery activities in the area. They have been willing partners in that.

There is a small group, as Joe indicated, that are unwilling to change their minds, but nonetheless the majority of the Nisga'a have accepted our fisheries management program and are participating. In fact, we have financial assistance for Nisga'a fishers, and Kincolith members were part of that as well.

Mr. James Lunney: Thank you. I have just one more question, if I may, on cooperation with the Alaskan fishery. I was quite interested to hear about that because it's been sort of an historic challenge to have cooperation between our nations. It has led to a lot of angst in the past, so I was pleased to hear about cooperation there.

I heard you mention a new international committee or commission, Mr. Nyce, that you're involved in. Can you tell us something about that?

Mr. Harry Nyce: It's actually an old one, the Pacific Salmon Commission. The Pacific Salmon Commission is largely responsible for negotiations between Alaska and British Columbia. One of our members sits as a commissioner. Joe was a commissioner at one time. Now Hubert Haldane from Laxgalts'ap is a commissioner. They have a southern panel and a northern panel of the commission. Mr. Dhaliwal sent me a letter appointing me to the northern panel last summer.

Mr. James Lunney: Excellent.

I have a last question—

The Chair: A short one.

Mr. James Lunney: —on habitat. Who's looking after habitat? I see a pretty pristine area there. Are there cooperative efforts in protecting habitat along your streams and rivers?

Mr. Harry Nyce: Yes, there are. In fact, there is another committee I'm part of. It's the tripartite Nass wildlife area—that's the larger part. We collaborate with British Columbia environment government officials on that. If there's any activity, whether it's logging, mining, fishing or hunting, we know about it and work cooperatively together to safeguard the environment in total.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Nyce.

Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn (St. John's West, PC/DR): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Also let me welcome the four gentlemen here this morning. It's certainly been an education for a lot of us.

I come from Newfoundland, the other bookend of the country. We also used to have a relatively good salmon fishery, commercial fishery, ocean fishery. They're gone completely. We have also seen the stocks of many of our great salmon rivers rapidly depleted.

Part of it was because of overfishing, I guess, in other areas—in spawning grounds and what have you, off Greenland. But a lot of it was also because of the tremendous growth in our seal herd, which has gone from one and a half million to over seven million, estimated. There has been no protection at all on our rivers. We've seen cutbacks by DFO, to the point where there was practically no protection and a lot of poaching, coupled with a complete lack of ownership.

What I like about what I see here is that the communities involved have assumed ownership. If we could get some of our communities, through which flow some of our good salmon rivers, to accept that same ownership, they in turn would see the strengthening of the returns to these rivers and the economic benefits that would flow to the communities involved.

I suppose what I'm looking for is your advice. If some of you were taken tomorrow, moved to Newfoundland, and put in some areas where the rivers had previously been lucrative but were now, because of some of the reasons I mentioned, on a downturn, what would you try to do to revive life within the communities and regenerate the stocks in our rivers?

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: Briefly, we have a treaty workshop initiative. We make it available to all interested parties—federal, provincial, first nations—if they so wish. We put forth the experiences we have had.

• 1040

In addition, we're periodically called to speak specifically on a resource sector. In the case of the fisheries, we've had numerous requests from tribal groups in British Columbia and elsewhere to give not only a report as to what we're doing, but also our view, as you indicated, as to what would happen if people assumed some form of responsibility for a certain resource.

Certainly I think people take a great deal of pride if they recognize an assumed responsibility for a resource; it goes a long way to ensuring that the resource will be there for future generations.

The Chair: Mr. Hearn.

Mr. Loyola Hearn: Thank you very much.

I totally agree, and I believe that's one of the things we have to do in many of our rural communities where we have tremendous resources—be it the fishery, the forest, whatever. A lot of people just sit back and complain about a lack of opportunity, and yet there are all kinds of resources around them that, if properly managed, can be used for their own benefit. When people don't feel they own anything, they have a sort of “who cares” attitude—it's not mine, it's government's, and it's not telling me what to do, and all of this kind of stuff. But if you can get people to buy in, then I believe we can create a tremendous number of opportunities.

I spent a week or so in Taiwan just recently—a little island a quarter the size of Newfoundland, with the population of Canada, no resources, and very little unemployment. Yet in Newfoundland we have all kinds of resources, a half a million people, and very high unemployment. I think a lot of it is because our resources have been taken and abused and used by others, but a lot of it's our own fault because we haven't assumed the ownership, the control, we should have for our benefit. Perhaps we can take a lesson from you.

So rather than ask a question, Mr. Chairman, I just want to say thank you. I think we've all learned lessons here this morning, and we wish you the best in your endeavours.

The Chair: Thanks, Loyola.

Karl, do you want in?

Mr. Karl English: Yes. I just want to make a comment.

Ownership is an important issue, but taking on the responsibility for the resource is the key. Perhaps responsibility flows from ownership—people feel a responsibility once they own something. But what I've seen happen, right from the junior technician level through to the senior managers—Harry and his two assistants, Nisga'a managers—is they see that there's a responsibility to take an action, whether it's out there on a fish wheel to make sure the fish is released in a way....

These are fishermen who previously would throw out a net and take everything in that net. Now they're seeing the need to conserve a stock, a steelhead stock, a coho stock—coho in a poor year, release it; coho in a good year, take it. That responsibility at the individual level, whether it's in the Nass or on the east coast or on the Fraser, is where it all starts. And if you can build this through working with people, building agreements, building this respect and trust, then things just take off.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you, Karl.

Andy, and then we'll go to...Tom, do you want in?

Mr. Tom Wappel (Scarborough Southwest, Lib.): I have two short questions.

The Chair: Okay.

Let's go to Andy.

Mr. Andy Burton: Thanks very much, Mr. Chairman. I have to leave shortly, so I appreciate the opportunity here.

I just want to say, once again, I'm certainly pleased to see your group here, Dr. Gosnell, and it's good to see you and Harry, old colleagues from way back. But I do have a question regarding aquaculture.

Do you have any thoughts on the future of aquaculture, in terms of the Nisga'a fishery? Or are you strictly going to continue or focus on wild stock management, enhancement, and utilization? Is there some future for aquaculture up there, as you see it?

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: We have not yet made a decision with respect to looking at other aspects of different fisheries. Certainly if our governing body does this, we're going to do it with a very critical eye, thoroughly examining the potential benefits and downsides of these things.

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It's one of those issues where we have to be careful, because certainly in the Nass River area we have wild stocks of different species of salmon we would like to protect. If we're going to do something else, the potential for damage to the wild stocks certainly will occur. To what degree we have no idea. But if we're going to enter into something different, we're certainly going to have a very close look at it.

Mr. Andy Burton: Well, thanks, Mr. Chairman.

In other words, it's not a closed door. You are interested sometime in the future.

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: That's right.

Mr. Andy Burton: Thank you very much. I'm going to have to go, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Burton.

It's your turn, Mr. Wappell.

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

Very briefly, gentlemen, sorry I was late. I was at another committee meeting.

I did want to say that the last time we met you gave a video presentation and you gave a video...and I thought it was very interesting. And here we are a year and some odd time into the situation.

Mr. Nyce, I have two very short questions. I hope they're short. In answer to Mr. Steckle, I think you said you've had no success in training enforcement officers—or little success, or some success. Would you just answer this again and explain what the problems are with enforcement officers, if there are any problems?

Mr. Harry Nyce: We have had no success in finding the funds.

Mr. Tom Wappel: Oh, in finding the funds. Okay.

Mr. Harry Nyce: We're hoping the committee will assist us in this area.

Mr. Tom Wappel: What kinds of funds are we talking about?

Mr. Harry Nyce: We had a five-year review of a curriculum that would suit us in our area. We know Fisheries and Oceans has a curriculum, but it's for the entire country. Many first nations in British Columbia have tried it and it doesn't work. It worked for three, four, five years and then it fell apart. The most recent time was with a huge group in the southern area of the Fraser River, but it didn't work.

So we took our time and developed a curriculum. We have a Nisga'a university college in the valley. My wife is in charge of it. She has a Master's degree in education administration. All we're doing is looking for funds now. We have the candidates. All our senior technicians are willing and able to take the course, but we're looking for financing.

Mr. Tom Wappel: How much?

Mr. Harry Nyce: We're looking for in excess of $700,000 over three years.

Mr. Tom Wappel: It doesn't seem like a great deal, but I guess every dollar has to be found somewhere.

My next and last question, Chief, has to do with your saying that some portion of the Nisga'a disagree with the treaty—and I believe their name begins with a K. I'm sorry, I don't know the name of those people. This seems to be flowing against the current. The treaty seems to be, from your perspective, working well. It's generally coming along.

What is their objection to it? Are they just cantankerous, or do they have some specific objection?

Mr. Joseph Gosnell: Cantankerous may be the proper word. They're a mere handful. They don't number in the hundreds or the thousands. It's a mere handful of individuals who I think—if I may speak very bluntly—are being used by other parties today.

The constitutional nature of the treaty was challenged by members of the opposition in the B.C. government. They're now the governing party. The Supreme Court dismissed the constitutional challenge to the Nisga'a Treaty, indicating very clearly what the views of the Supreme Court of B.C. were. Now whether or not this will occur in the Supreme Court of Canada remains to be seen.

But the so-called dissidents to the Nisga'a Treaty—and bear in mind we're human beings.... I fully did not expect 100% approval of the treaty, recognizing that there will always be people who will disagree on the fisheries and the forestry, the tourism, finances—so many things—because it's a comprehensive document. I never anticipated 100% approval. But the dissidents we have today, for your information, readily accept the benefits of the treaty—readily—and I find this quite surprising.

The Chair: I'm going to have to interrupt. Although the bells are not ringing, there is a vote right now that could be without bells—a maximum of 30 minutes towards a vote. We have to adjourn and go to the House.

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I have a couple of questions here. Dr. Gosnell and others, could you talk to Mike from my office for a few minutes—and maybe Alan and Lorie, too—on the business of training? I had some questions on that as well, but I don't have the time to ask them. So would you talk to those people and then we can have a look at it and see what we might be able to do.

On behalf of the committee, Dr. Gosnell, Mr. Nyce, Jim, and Karl, thank you very much for coming. It was a very informative presentation. We wish you all the best in the next season. Thank you.

This meeting is adjourned.