Mr. Kwak, you mentioned another technical term.
Evidence of meeting #5 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dfo.
Evidence of meeting #5 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was dfo.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
Okay. Formalin is a preservative, a liquid preservative that keeps the alevins from rotting.
Yes, you're right, John. The reality is that originally there was a legal document in the local paper, which said there was going to be some sort of a bridge built. We had 30 days to respond to this bridge or whatever it was they were building. One of my associates went out there the following day, after the article appeared. To his absolute amazement, they were already in the process of construction, and yet we had 30 days to respond to this.
E-mails immediately went out all over, and Marvin immediately got involved. We went down to the gravel bar, as you can see. Although it's difficult to see right here in these pictures, you can very clearly see what redds are. They're little hills that the fish dig out, they drop their eggs, and then they fill the gravel back in. If you look at one of the pictures that I have, you can see.
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
One of the clearer pictures that you can see is actually picture number eight. If you look at picture number eight, you can see all those little humps.
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
All those little scallops are fish redds, so they're everywhere.
Every time a fish digs out gravel, it digs a hole, drops its eggs in, and spreads a bunch of gravel on top of that, and then there's a hump behind that. Hydraulically, the hump forces water through the embryos and the alevins and makes sure that the oxygenated water percolates across the fish. They're very easy to see once you're out there.
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
The following day, I went again with a film crew and got hold of CBC, CTV, or one of them. We went down there, and I dug out two redds. I took the fish, the little alevins, as you can see, put them in formalin, took them to the fisheries officers, and said this was going on.
The very next day when we were there again, field staff were present, and they actually happened to run into me. One of the things that happened was they said that they wanted to talk to me and asked me to come over. They asked me to show them the redd that I dug up. It was very easy to see, so I said I would.
They immediately went over and dug the whole redd out. I think one of the reasons they did it was that the possibility existed that I had violated a redd where there were still live fish. If that had happened, then I might have been charged. But there were no live fish; they were all dead, and they saw that. They then went digging around, looking for themselves.
9:45 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
There is another point that I want to make before I move to enforcement. The gravel extraction site on the big island really had little or perhaps nothing to do with flood control, did it?
9:45 a.m.
As an Individual
From my perspective as a biologist, I have been immersed in gravel removal for some time. I actually conducted or managed a couple of hydraulic models on the Fraser River to try to determine the difference between aggradation and channel alignment. River elevations go up and down as a function of all sorts of things, such as the amount of water that's going through, whether aggradation is occurring, and the alignment of the river. It's far more complicated than just a bunch of gravel that might be settling.
From my perspective, the location where the gravel was being taken out, if you're going to use it for flood protection, was a good spot to take out gravel. It wasn't a bad spot. It's how DFO authorized the gravel being taken out and how land and water basically managed the process that really was egregious. If you're going to take out gravel, do it properly and don't do it this way.
The thing that really brought it home was when one of the conservation and protection field officers said that DFO should be charged. They actually brought out the sections of the Criminal Code that DFO should be charged under. To us, it was absolutely stunning that one of the staff from DFO should be articulating that DFO itself should be charged, and not under the Fisheries Act, but under the Criminal Code for failing to meet their statutory responsibilities.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
That's interesting.
Frank, I'd like to go to the enforcement document. You're concerned that enforcement levels in the Fraser this year are going to be no different from what they were in 2005, and in 2005 you found them inadequate. You also talked about the use of ceremonial permits.
It's my understanding that by the end of April of this year, the Cheam Band was fishing, beginning April 8, I think 19 days out of 23.
9:50 a.m.
As an Individual
I'm not sure about that. I do know that they got a ceremonial permit to fish from May 9 to May 29, which was 20 days. That's when they got permission through this pilot project. Instead of having to apply constantly for ceremonial permits—and what that means is that if there's some kind of ceremony such as a wedding, a funeral, the first of the season fish, or whatever--they're given a permit to go and catch x number of fish for their ceremony. There are all kinds of reasons. So DFO decided, since the Cheam Band was asking for so many of these permits on an ongoing basis, to do a pilot project instead and to just give them a blanket opening from May 9 to May 29. They could fish 24 hours a day, seven days a week, with whatever type of gear they wanted to fish with, with the provision that they let DFO know what they were going to do 24 hours in advance.
Our concern is that they're fishing all the time. And DFO enforcement staff really doesn't know whether they have a permit issued exactly then either, because they can, on a whim, all of a sudden say that they are going fishing. If they forget to ask for the permit, they just say, “Oh, well, we forgot to ask. It started 12 hours ago.” So there really is no enforcement in the sense that enforcement doesn't know themselves when they're legally fishing or illegally fishing.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
My understanding is that in May, the only restriction was that for two consecutive days in a week they were supposed to refrain from fishing. But that could be any two days of the week, so that confusion reigns.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
The number of fish caught, obviously, are far in excess of what is needed for personal use or ceremonial use. That's a given, isn't it?
9:50 a.m.
As an Individual
From my perspective, yes. In this particular 20-day period, they could catch 115 chinook. That feeds an awful lot of people at an awful lot of weddings.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
The fact of the matter is that we don't have adequate enforcement. DFO is making it even more difficult for the enforcement officers to work because of the uncertainty around these openings. They're allowing these ceremonial openings. The fish caught are not to be sold, but it's impossible for DFO to monitor. It is absolutely impossible, whether or not those fishery officers are in place.
9:50 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
In fact, if you do phone in when you're observing an ongoing illegal activity, they're just as likely as not to respond by saying that they'll be down sometime later. Are they not?
9:50 a.m.
As an Individual
That is probably the case. And I can cite numerous incidents when I have reported a fishery that I absolutely knew was illegal. I reported it on a Friday, reported it on a Saturday, reported it on a Sunday, and Monday morning I've gotten a call to my cell phone from a fisheries officer saying, “Oh, by the way, you left this information with ORR. They left it on my cell phone. I'm just coming to work now. What's going on?” In the meantime, it's been going on all weekend.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Yes, I have had the same experience.
From what we've seen, and from the reports that are out there, it's going to be no different this season. Is it?
9:55 a.m.
As an Individual
I would say probably not, although if indeed they have enforcement staff coming in from the Pacific region, that will help a little. And the fact that this enforcement staff is going to remain for three weeks, rather than for two weeks, will probably help a little, as well. But seeing as we have an abundance of sockeye in the pre-forecast of somewhere around 17.5 million fish, there is going to be an absolute zoo out there on the river, and the first nations are going to be doing a lot of fishing. Yes, it's going to be a real problem.
9:55 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
But I'm not aware of any area in the Pacific region that has an overabundance of fisheries officers who can afford to give people up to send them into the Fraser area.