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Results: 1 - 7 of 7
Frank Brown
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Frank Brown
2021-02-01 16:11
[Witness spoke in Heiltsuk]
[English]
I am of the Heiltsuk from Bella Bella. We are the salmon people. Salmon play a key role in our lives. Around 10,000 years ago, Heiltsuk built salmon weirs after the last ice age and also transplanted them from salmon-bearing streams to non salmon-bearing streams.
My chief's name, Yím̓ ás ⅄áλíya̓ sila, talks about when our first ancestor came down from above as a half-man, half-eagle and landed on a salmon trap. What you see here is an artistic rendition of that name, which goes back to the beginning of time.
We have a sacred covenant with salmon back to the olden times when food was scarce and an ancestor went into the salmon world where Maesila was the salmon chief. This ancestor brought back teachings, laws and ways to be in relationship with salmon. Still today, this ancient relationship is recognized within our Heiltsuk potlatch ceremonies, where twins lead our salmon dance. Many of our existing village sites are close to salmon rivers within our territory.
When we transitioned from the traditional economy to the cash economy, our rivers in our territory were overflowing with salmon. Our old people said that you could walk across the salmon, because it was so plentiful. Now, today, they are nearly barren of any salmon. In their last count, there were five or six pieces on their return.
Over time, we adapted and adopted and had a fishing fleet of both seine boats and gillnetters. In our recent history, salmon was a major economic driver for our village, with millions of dollars generated through our local band store, fuel company, fishing fleet, fish plant and other spinoff benefits. We currently own a 50,000-square-foot fish plant that is now completely underutilized. We not only had a large fishing fleet but shore workers who depended on the plant for a livelihood.
This statement is representative of the majority of coastal fishing communities in British Columbia.
We chose not to participate in finfish aquaculture because we could not turn our backs on wild salmon. We have opposed finfish activity from 2003 onwards, when an Atlantic salmon hatchery was established in Ocean Falls. My granny Maggie's grandfather, Andrew Wallace, was the chief of this village. This place had an abundance of salmon. They called it Ocean Falls because the river sounded like the ocean, and again, salmon was abundant.
The decision to hold our relationship to salmon and not participate in finfish aquaculture because of the disease, escapement and habitat impacts has had a devastating toll on the Heiltsuk people and has had a major impact on our employment and economic and social existence.
We have taken from wild salmon and it is now time to give back and look after these wild salmon. We need to invest in habitat restoration and research to find out why these salmon are not surviving in the ocean. Could it be the big blobs, the ocean acidification? We need to plan and support these fishing communities. It's imperative. This needs to be addressed at local, regional and transboundary levels.
We need to reconcile our relationship with the earth before we can reconcile our relationship with Canada, which is one of the major political drivers of the nation-state of Canada.
We're going to continue to uphold our responsibility and we're willing and able to work with Canada to address the needs of the salmon. We want to uphold the doctrine of priority that was established through Sparrow, where conservation comes first; first nations' social, ceremonial and food requirements are second; and commercial and commercial recreation come third and fourth.
We need to transition from DFO central management to a more collaborative management system.
We need to transition to support indigenous participation in all levels of management and fisheries science.
We need to rework environmental standards, with indigenous people involved, look at projects on a cumulative basis, pay attention to enforcement of regulations and account for the real price of resource extraction and continued pollution.
We need to treat salmon with the respect they deserve as a culturally important icon of not only indigenous people, but all people in Canada.
We need to consider a managed harvest of seals and sea lions to reduce their impact as a threat to the survival of wild salmon in B.C., and provide economic opportunity to first nations harvesters as a part of an economic reconciliation initiative.
We need to ensure indigenous people in B.C. are equipped as allies on salmon issues with indigenous organizations from Alaska to Oregon.
We need to support the development of the national indigenous guardians network, to be the eyes and ears on the land and sea.
We need to remove open pen fish farms from the Pacific waters to give our wild salmon a fighting chance, and to save the genetic biodiversity of these wild salmon as a strategy to manage through the precautionary principle.
Walas Gixiasa. Thank you.
Clifford Atleo Sr.
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Clifford Atleo Sr.
2020-12-09 15:37
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to everyone.
I'm going to say a few words in our language very briefly, but I will interpret.
[Witness spoke in Nuu-chah-nulth and provided the following translation:]
On behalf of Ha’wiih from Ahousaht, I'd like to formally thank the House Standing Committee on Fisheries for the invitation to talk about a most important issue affecting the whole west coast of Canada.
[English]
In particular, our area is severely impacted by what we're talking about.
I'll give you a little background in terms of pre-contact. Most streams and rivers contained salmon in British Columbia. Some had sockeye, some had Chinook and some had both. Others had chum, coho and steelhead. Some had pinks. Larger rivers had all species. Indigenous people managed them all very well.
Since contact, the newcomers learned to harvest and process all the species. Canneries existed on the Skeena River, Rivers Inlet, Fraser River, Nootka, Ceepeecee, Kildonan, Port Alberni, Victoria, Prince Rupert, Bella Coola, Namu and Tofino Inlet. I did make a mistake in my written document, saying that I'm not aware of any canneries operating today. There is one. It's called St. Jean's. It is partly owned by first nations people from Nuu-chah-nulth.
In terms of my history with fisheries, I grew up in Ahousaht. Every family used to participate in a commercial salmon fishery. Our participation enabled our community to be self-sustained. We didn't have to travel far because we fished most of our local stocks. All species were plentiful. All indigenous nations were similar to ours. We trolled, we gilnetted and we seined. This was 60 years ago.
Over time, our participation was reduced, as were the run sizes of all species. In the 1980s, salmon farms were permitted to operate on inlets and bays of the west coast of Vancouver Island. It was around this time that the Canadian government used our trollers to target U.S. chinook stocks. The strategy was to force the U.S. into negotiating what became the Pacific Salmon Treaty. However, our west coast of Vancouver Island chinook stocks were impacted negatively by this strategy. Our chinook stocks have never recovered from that policy and the policies that allowed large numbers of open-net pen fish farms to operate in west coast of Vancouver Island waters. Other species that have suffered as well are sockeye, chum, coho, pink and steelhead.
The existence of salmon farms along the west coast of Vancouver Island migration routes have severely impacted rebuilding efforts of all species.
The management by our Department of Fisheries and Oceans has not helped either. The evidence is that with the newcomers, laws were enacted with good intentions, with conservation being rather prominent in legislation, only to have DFO fall way short of upholding the law. DFO has the authority to manage, with devastating results. This evidence of shortcomings in management has resulted in the current dismal state of salmon stock coast-wide.
Poor logging and inappropriate land use policies by the B.C. provincial government have contributed to the destruction of salmon habitat. Functional habitat is required for long-term rebuilding of all salmon stocks in British Columbia.
Poor action in addressing climate change by all governments is not helping either.
Thank you.
Robert Chamberlin
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Robert Chamberlin
2020-12-09 15:42
[Witness spoke in Kwak'wala and provided the following text:]
Gila’kasla Hama’thlal Lal’kwala’tly. Wigya’xans hutli’laxa la’man wathdam. La’man wath’dam gyan no’kia kas Lal’kwala’tly.
[Witness provided the following translation:]
Greetings, gathered people. Listen to my words today. My words are from the hearts of my people.
[English]
I just wanted to follow Cliff's lead and speak in my language a little bit. I am imploring you to hear the words that I have to say today on behalf of the hearts of the people of the first nations.
I am grateful for this opportunity to speak to you today about the state of B.C.'s Pacific salmon. This is a critical topic to B.C. first nations, as salmon are a primary traditional food source and are constitutionally protected and recognized by Canada's Supreme Court.
In terms of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, wild salmon are considered or captured within a number of the areas, including food security, culture, traditions, education, environmental standards and territorial decision-making, which of course means free, prior and informed consent.
This current government is beginning to set a table for the implementation of the United Nations declaration, and free, prior and informed consent must be a foundational component, especially to the current Discovery Islands fish farm consultations and accommodations process; to embrace the details that have been provided by the first nations involved in this consultation to meaningfully implement the precautionary principle, especially given that none of the Fraser River first nations were included in the consultations that will further impact their aboriginal rights.
The crisis that is B.C. Pacific salmon simply cannot wait any stretch of time for the fulfilment of the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
With the historic low returns, notably to the Fraser River, this is clearly the beginning of a downward spiral to extinction, and I say this with no drama. Historic low returns equal historic low eggs being spawned in the Fraser River. Historic low spawning eggs equal historic lower juvenile salmon entering the ocean.
It is an accepted fact that only 1% to 4% of juvenile salmon return to be the next generation of spawning salmon, so we can reasonably and logically anticipate that we will experience further historic lows, continuing the downward spiral to extinction in the coming years.
DFO Minister Jordan recently announced this government's response to Cohen commission recommendation 19. The announcement included the determination that the open-net cage fish farms of the Discovery Islands area posed less than minimal risk or harm to Fraser River sockeye.
This determination was founded upon nine science papers that were so-called peer-reviewed through the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, CSAS. The CSAS peer-review process is horribly flawed and provides great opportunity for an extremely biased outcome.
Proponents—in this case, a fish farm company and fish farm industry associations—are involved in in every component, every step, of determining if the operations pose a risk to Pacific salmon, such as the steering committee developing the scope of the science, terms of reference, and discussion paper development, and the peer review itself can be unduly influenced by industry, as they can select who will participate in the peer review.
This is far less than the impartiality and objectivity that I and many first nations, commercial and tourism industries and Canadians who rely upon healthy and abundant wild salmon stocks would expect as a reasonable starting point. Decades of science that withstood international peer reviews were ignored, even though that process was far more rigorous and subject to a completely impartial review assessment and outcome.
Sea lice was to be a 10th science paper related to the Cohen recommendation 19 announcement in determining the minimal risk or minimal harm. Sea lice were omitted from this suite of science papers.
This is extremely concerning, as fish farms are located sequentially along key out-migration corridors of juvenile Pacific salmon and produce billions of larvae that reside in the upper water column where the juvenile salmon are to be found. Given that fish farms are located where there is good tidal flush, the juvenile Pacific salmon are brought in very close proximity of areas inundated with billions of sea lice larvae. Sea lice can physically kill juvenile salmon, but also change their behaviours, making them more susceptible to predation.
Regarding the sea lice conditions of licence, the three sea lice average is the trigger for treatment on a fish farm.
Three sea lice may seem like an innocuous number, but considering that each fish farm has 500,000 to 700,000 Atlantic salmon, the number of sea lice becomes staggering. There's also the production of billions of sea lice larvae as well. Within the sea lice conditions of licence, there's an identified out-migration window for juvenile Pacific salmon, this being from March until June. The conditions of licence are to provide special regulatory protection for juvenile Pacific salmon during this time. The conditions of licence are completely and utterly untethered from juvenile Pacific salmon that they are designed to protect, as DFO does not monitor the presence of sea lice on juvenile wild salmon whatsoever—
Tyrone McNeil
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Tyrone McNeil
2020-12-09 15:57
[Witness spoke in Halkomelem]
[English]
Thank you for the opportunity to share here. I ask the interpreters to excuse me, as I don't have prepared notes to share with them.
Thank you for the opportunity to appear before the Standing Committee. In preparing to do that, I couldn't help but think of being about seven or eight years old with my late mother. This would have been about 1968 or 1969, something like that. My mom was having a conversation with two other ladies about her age. They were talking about how many fish they had put away for the summer.
The one lady responded 108, and the other one said 52, and my mom's response was 96. They chuckled at my mom because with a big family she had put away only 96 jars of salmon. Those would have been quart jars back in the day. My mom's response was that it was not 96 jars; it was 96 dozen quarts of salmon put away in one season.
Hearing this narrative about where we are with salmon in today's state, I can't help but think of growing up on salmon, as we did throughout our early years, right up until a point in time when the stocks started declining, and we had less and less access to fish.
Also, on the other end of it, we had some studies that showed us as Stó:lo people. What you know as the Fraser River, we know as the Stó:lo. It's the mother of all rivers. It's the food provider for us, the Stó:lo people.
When the first Europeans arrived on the shores, they calculated that we Stó:lo people consumed about 1,000 pounds of salmon per capita per year. They looked at other tribes around us, but we had by far the greatest consumption.
I'm thinking of those two baselines in a narrative of reconciliation. My community now consists of 1,000 people. Had we still been consuming salmon at 1,000 pounds per capita, that would be a million pounds per year. We are certainly not anywhere near that, due only to how DFO regulates us and manages the fishery as a whole.
I would really encourage folks to think about that impact of going from such sustenance to where we are now, where we would only have a chance to fish every weekend like we did growing up. If we have a wedding, we barbeque fish. If we have a funeral, we barbeque fish. If we have a birthday, we barbeque fish. Sometimes we barbeque or cook fish just for the fun of it, because it's in our blood. It's in our DNA.
Thinking of that from a reconciliation manner, Mr. Chair, I would think that in this day and era of reconciliation and of the declaration, folks like you and the department would be doing everything they possibly could to ensure that at a minimum our sustenance is met. In doing that, you have tools in front of you around the wild salmon policy, the Cohen commission recommendations and the precautionary principle.
The 10 principles are supposed to be driving the federal bureaucracy, particularly around the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Articles 18, 19, 24 and 38 really stand out for me, Mr. Chair.
It's about utilizing existing tools that the federal government has at hand through the department, and what can be done to prevent any harm, particularly man-made harm. We know that there are climate change factors that we can do only some things about, but we're in control of the man-made influences, particularly around the open-net pen fish farms and the migratory route around the Discovery Passage in particular.
You can't imagine the harm that those fish farms do on a migratory path. When our salmon are out migrating right by these farms and there are lice outbreaks on them, DFO allows a 42-day window for those farms to respond to the lice. In doing that, they are not monitoring the amount of lice that are on the wild salmon, period.
I think there's a missed opportunity in terms of not using tools that the people have available right here and now to better protect and to do everything you possibly can to minimize the man-made negative impacts on something that's so vital to us. It's more than a food source. It's a way of being. It's who we are as Stó:lo people and who other first nations are as well.
Thank you for the opportunity, Mr. Chair.
View Jaime Battiste Profile
Lib. (NS)
[Member spoke in Mi'kmaq]
I just want to thank you all for opening up with your indigenous languages. As a Mi'kmaq language speaker, it's always great for me to hear other languages.
I also want to thank you for your continued advocacy in speaking of UNDRIP. Many of you may know that my father was part of the initial UN indigenous working group that drafted UNDRIP.
I'm going to ask two questions. I'm going to open it up to the floor, because you probably all have recommendations on this.
Do you think that implementing UNDRIP is a good first start in achieving reconciliation and a recommendation for this committee to look at?
Second, in 2017, the Liberal government announced $25 million over four years to support the indigenous guardians pilot program, and with it sunsetting in 2021, I'm wondering if you think that it has been effective. Do you believe that when indigenous nations are able to co-manage the resources, that is one of the best practices?
I'll leave that open for you guys to answer, with short answers if you could, so that I can hear from everyone.
Greg Witzky
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Greg Witzky
2020-07-21 15:10
[Witness spoke in Secwepemctsin and provided the following text:]
Weyt-kp xwexéytep. Greg Witzky ren Skweskwst. Quelmuc te Secwepepmcul’ecw.
[Witness provided the following translation:]
Hello, everyone. My name is Greg Witzky. I'm indigenous from the Shuswap Nation.
[English]
I wish to express my gratitude to the standing committee for blessing me today with this opportunity to openly discuss the state of the salmon and the impacts of the Big Bar landslide.
My role over the past year with the government-to-government-to-government landslide remediation efforts has been to offer traditional knowledge, cultural protocols and perspectives and to make sure that indigenous roles and voices are not lost in the efforts to help salmon get past the landslide.
Mr. Chair, I trust that the information you are about to hear today will convince the standing committee that now is the right time to utilize the committee's political influence to persuade government decision-makers to take significant measures to protect salmon for generations to come.
Pacific salmon have been impacted by natural disasters and man-made dangers since time immemorial, yet they have shown their resilience to endure. However, at no other time in history have salmon suffered a more imminent threat to their existence than that of today. There are no simple answers, of course, to address all the different complex impacts and cumulative effects surrounding the current poor state of the Pacific salmon. My witness appearance here today is intended to provide, from my ancestral wisdom, a viable solution to our growing problem.
I was asked to appear today to give my opinion on the state of the salmon and the impacts of the Big Bar landslide. My opinion will come from ancestral traditional knowledge, which has taught me that when our Mother Earth is hurting, then we are hurting, and if we are hurting, we hurt others. If we don't do something to stop that hurt when we have the opportunity to do so, then we're not living up to our natural laws to protect and preserve our Mother Earth for seven generations to come.
Mr. Chair and distinguished committee members, I ask that you sincerely consider what I'm going to now address.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has stated that even without any fishery impacts at all, some of the already endangered salmon stocks will not be able to rebuild without us undertaking significant actions to protect them throughout their entire life cycle. The Big Bar landslide occurred at quite possibly the worst time in history, as while the 2019 forecast was moderate, the salmon return turned out to be the lowest in recorded history. Unfortunately, this year's salmon returns are expected to be even poorer than last year. Back-to-back historically low returns are certainly not a good thing.
These unnatural low returns, compounded with the 2020 higher than average snow packs, increased rainfall and runoff, have exacerbated migration issues for the already dire straits of the Pacific salmon. Add in the Big Bar landslide migration obstruction issue and once again we have a complete recipe for disaster. We know something big and bad is happening, and you're likely thinking, what can we collectively do about it?
I was shown at a very young age that indigenous people were put here to ensure that all food and natural materials from our Mother Earth are for the continued survival of our way of life. Nowadays, we have rights entrenched in the Canadian Constitution that provide us with the priority access to fish, but more importantly, we have the responsibility to uphold those rights for all of humankind. We can't maintain those responsibilities if we can't participate in the process to safeguard these rights.
Many indigenous peoples in these contemporary times now have the skills and capacity to effectively co-manage salmon fisheries alongside our DFO counterparts. What we don't have with those rights and capacities are the same levels of funding, jurisdiction and decision-making authorities that our partners in the different government departments possess. Meanwhile, indigenous people are anticipated to play an instrumental role in the protection, management and preservation of Pacific salmon, so steps must be taken to embed this responsibility into the policies, regulations and laws that impact Pacific salmon throughout their life cycle.
Therefore, I am asking the committee to please provide direction to DFO in the form of the following recommendation: Utilize your strong political influence to persuade the powers that be to deliver equitable A-based permanent funding support to indigenous fisheries organizations, like the Fraser River Aboriginal Fisheries Secretariat, which has just recently blended with the Fraser Salmon Management Council, so that we can effectively collaborate with DFO to ignite a culture change as stated in DFO's 2019 reconciliation strategy.
DFO was created to police Indian fisheries over 100 years ago in order to provide the non-Indian commercial fishery with increased, unobstructed opportunities. As a result, systematic paternalistic values have been ingrained in DFO that need to be reconciled directly if we are to work together to protect Pacific salmon. If DFO desires to build renewed nation-to-nation, Inuit-Crown and government-to-government relations with indigenous peoples, based on the recognition of rights, respect, co-operation and partnership, then they must prove it by putting concrete actions to these words.
That said, I wish to applaud DFO for recently attempting to acknowledge this divide by signing the historic Fraser Salmon Collaborative Management Agreement on July 5, 2019. To date we have a signed agreement, but we have yet to obtain permanent government funding support to co-design, co-develop and co-implement the decision-making, co-management and administrative processes.
Patrick Harry
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Patrick Harry
2020-07-21 15:29
[Witness spoke in Secwepemctsin]
[English]
I thank you for taking the opportunity to meet with us here today and for the opportunity to present in front of this standing committee on the Big Bar landslide recovery. I'm coming to you today from the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem community on the banks of the Fraser River here.
Stswecem’c Xgat’tem was made aware of the landslide at Big Bar just over a year ago, about 13 months ago. This really hit our community hard. It hit at the heart of our community, or our communities, as we're made up of two communities.
I should introduce the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem First Nation territories. We lie on the banks of the Fraser River, west of Clinton, B.C., and south of Wind Lake, B.C. Stswecem’c Xgat’tem has always relied on salmon fisheries. Salmon fisheries have been the most important piece of sustenance for Stswecem’c Xgat’tem people since time immemorial.
When we were first notified of the slide and first engaged by the Crown and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, our message was that the salmon fisheries have provided for Stswecem’c Xgat’tem people since time immemorial, and any impact on those salmon impacts our identity, so our discussion with DFO over the past year has been very productive. As was mentioned by the previous speaker, we knew that we had to work with some synergy on this project and that there wasn't a lot of time for differences here. We have to work with synergy, and this calls for unity.
Over the past year, we've created a relationship with the prime contractor. We've created relationships on a government-to-government level with the joint executive steering committee, with DFO and with the province of British Columbia and have tried to move this recovery ahead as smoothly as possible here, knowing that the Stswecem’c Xgat’tem people's identity relies on this recovery carrying through.
In August of 2019 we had a commitment from the minister around funding, consistent funding, for the recovery project. Over the past year, I think we've seen a lot of support from government, and we expect that to continue. Minister Jordan has made us aware that this project is of highest importance to the Crown and to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and we're thankful for that.
Our number one priority at Stswecem’c Xgat’tem has been natural fish passage. I think it's something that we can all agree on, whether you work for DFO, or for the province, or for Stswecem’c Xgat’tem or one of our delegated agencies here that are working so hard to make sure that these fish achieve natural passage. I think we can all agree that natural passage is the priority.
We have a long history of fishing, and our identity relies on it. Over the past couple of years, we've had very dismal years as far as fishing goes, and it is impacting our communities. It is impacting our youth. We have missed out on those opportunities to get down on the river and teach our sons and our daughters, and the grandparents have missed that opportunity to be down there making sure that we pass on our culture and our teachings. That's why we're trying so hard to play a significant role in this recovery and to make sure that we achieve natural passage.
It looks like we're going to be placing some infrastructure down at Big Bar, and I wanted to mention that we've been here before, with the Hell's Gate landslide, over a hundred years ago. We've been here before. We found a solution at Hell's Gate, and I think we're heading down that same road, where there's a need for a permanent solution.
Stswecem'c Xgat'tem looks forward to participating through our indigenous benefits plan.
Our message to government, to the Crown, is that this landslide has the ability to affect and impact Stswecem'c Xgat'tem First Nation's title and rights. If there's negligence on behalf of the Crown in properly recovering the Big Bar landslide, it could lead to an impact on Stswecem'c Xgat'tem's right to fish, which we hold dearly. That was the beginning of our discussion about how we wanted to be involved with the Big Bar landslide.
One of the options that were proposed to us from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the federal government was an indigenous benefits plan. Over the past year, we've developed an indigenous benefits plan with DFO and Kiewit. We've made progress. In the past year, we've developed a steady relationship with Kiewit, and we've developed a good relationship through the joint executive steering committee. We've been able to bring capacity on board to have our community involved at all levels with regard to the recovery.
Moving forward, we're looking for consistency and are looking to be further involved through our indigenous benefits plan and through our current relationship, on a government-to-government basis, with the federal Crown.
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