Troubled Waters
Every now and again I lapse into believing we live in a democracy. Then something happens to jerk me back to reality. The latest is the BC Supreme Court’s April 19 announcement of a decision respecting the fishing rights of the Nuu-chah-nulth First Nations (there are five of them) on the west coat of Vancouver Island. This would be the case the federal conservative government under Prime Minister Harper allegedly spent $19M dollars fighting from 2006 but the Liberals under Prime Minister Trudeau abandoned almost a decade later. We can thank background issues such as the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP) and PM Trudeau’s headlong rush to embrace that as the theme for reconciliation for all the alleged atrocities our forefathers brought to bear on the FNs of this province.
Here’s the judge’s decision for those with lots of time and an appetite for masochism:
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/sc/18/06/2018BCSC0633.htm
Lets put this into perspective. A judge has handed over the fish resources of a 9 km wide swath of water that extends from the Brooks Peninsula in the north to approximately Port Renfrew in the south. Somewhere in the 400 page ruling the judge states the area is 160 km long. According to the maps of the Nuu-chah-nulth territories I make the straight line length between Brooks and Renfrew to be double that. It includes notable steelhead streams like the Gold, the Stamp/Somass, the Nahmint, the Nitinat, and the San Juan/Harris.
The Nuu-chah-nulth territory. The Brooks Peninsula is the end of the dotted line boundary to the northwest. Port Renfrew is near the southern end of the dotted line.
On the demographic side, the judgement notes the plaintiffs’ population is 4,855, which is 46% of the West Coast Vancouver Island FNs, 15% of Vancouver Island FNs, and 7% of British Columbia FNs with reserves in coastal areas. They are 8% of the total WCVI population and 1% of the total Vancouver Island population. Slice it whatever way you want. A very small component of our population has now been given primary access to all fish and shellfish resources not needed for conservation. In fact, if we don’t know it already, we soon will understand that amounts to virtually exclusive access to a lot of fish and fishing in times ahead.
What other natural resource is handed over in this fashion – timber, minerals, water? Why fish (and wildlife?). Why are the fish that we have all paid to have managed (yeah, I know, it ain’t exactly perfect) now the currency of reconciliation? Where else in Canada has this been done? What makes us special? If this was New Brunswick, home of Minister LeBlanc, how long would he last if a similar court decision re-allocated fish in any fashion similar to what BC is now going to experience?
Here’s the press release from Minister LeBlanc that spins the story just right for all the bleeding hearts stretched along the 49th parallel who don’t have a clue what is going on but vote Liberal because that spin has been carefully crafted:
https://www.canada.ca/en/fisheries-oceans/news/2018/04/statement-from-the-minister-of-fisheries-oceans-and-the-canadian-coast-guard-following-the-bc-supreme-court-decision—ahousaht-indian-band-and-nat.html
Please explain the implementation plan to us PM Trudeau and Fisheries Minister LeBlanc. You’re going to turn over the farm to people you would have us believe are going to replace your staff as the fisheries management experts of the future. How’s that model been working for us so far? Could we cite the Fraser example where your trained and experienced professional staff oversee a multitude of FNs and their surgical management of their own people? How are all those sockeye, chinook and steelhead stocks we keep seeing as recommended for listing as Species At Risk doing? I guess that will be next, after we fix the west coast of Vancouver Island. (Better hurry!)
Yes, I know you have the Nisga’a Treaty and the subsequent fisheries management program to hold out as an example. I’ll remind you, however, you’re talking one FN (except for that very small overlap with the Skeena’s Gitanyow FN that concerns Meziadin sockeye ) along a very sparsely populated Nass River and untold millions of dollars paid to high priced non-FN consultants over the past three decades to get that scenario together. And, yes, I’m aware Haida Gwaii where you also have only one FN is very likely next in line. Those are simple. It gets a lot more complex when you get to the Skeena and its multiple FNs. The west coast of Vancouver Island isn’t dissimilar. Then there’s that Fraser again.
Who is going to pay for implementation of this latest court decision? What does the opportunity cost of that look like? What happens to all the other people of every non-FN description who have spent their lives and taxes associated with the same fish and fisheries now handed over? I find it just a bit ironic that some of the voices demanding compensation come from currently licensed commercial fishermen who are going to be ruled off the water to accommodate the new kids on the block. A lot of those voices are FNs who would seem to be double dipping. Are we going to pay them out for the loss of access to fish now re-allocated to FN fishers but re-label their boats so they they get to fish that re-allocation just as if nothing ever changed? That should make for some great relations in those WCVI communities.
In the meantime there will be an unprecedented amount of money spent to get this wonderful new system installed. DFO is not going to just hand over the farm tomorrow, although that might be the most cost effective approach. No, instead they’ll drown everyone in the sea of consultation and process first. The consultants will make some very big money through all of this but that will never be made clear. And, no, there isn’t an unemployed equivalent of DFO’s downtown Vancouver staff sitting around waiting for a call to arms. It will take training, years of it. Look at the ledger for the Nisga’a treaty implementation for an idea of what lies ahead. (On a relative micro scale we might try the Moricetown steelhead mark/recapture population study, now a quarter century old and a few million $$$ spent to produce nary a shred of useful steelhead management information and nothing more than seasonal jobs for a revolving door of local band members.)
If anyone thinks the trend in fish abundance (take your choice – chinook, sockeye, halibut, other ground fish, steelhead, etc.) is going to reverse itself while all this reconciliation unfolds, I say take a serious look around. What we are going to experience is increasing pressure by the fastest growing segment of British Columbia’s population on fish supplies that are nowhere near stable, much less capable of increasing to meet all the demands and expectations coming their way. The first losers will be those of us of the non-FN persuasion. Ultimately there isn’t going to be enough for the FNs either, even if by some magic there is an airtight management system complete with rigid adherence to things like quotas, catch reporting, compliance. Then what?
Getting back to steelhead, where is the province? I may have missed it in that 400 page output by our BC Supreme Court judge but I didn’t detect the word steelhead anywhere. What happens when the gill netting of steelhead begins (again) in the Somass River and the local sales flourish? That would fall squarely between the judge’s goal posts. DFO certainly isn’t going to step forward with a case for steelhead conservation anywhere in this province when they are still supporting a chum roe fishery on top of the last 225 Interior Fraser steelhead. The same story will unfold on the Skeena sooner or later. (Moricetown will be back on line in that regard before we know it.) Has anyone heard a word from either Minister Donaldson or Minister LeBlanc on any of the Draconian measures soon to be levelled against recreational angling there? Even Minister Donaldson hailing from downtown Hazelton, right there in the center of the last and best steelhead fishing in this province, isn’t enough to warrant his presence or voice while his colleagues blunder their way through their own interpretation and application of UNDRIP and reconciliation.
Steelhead and those with enough years under their belt to have watched this unfold are going to know a very different world soon. The people who created it will be nowhere to be found when that inevitability descends.
Bob Hooten
