Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I want to start off by thanking the first nations territory we're in today, and thank them for having us here to do this business today. It's the custom for our people to acknowledge that.
My cultural name is Kiista and my English name is Keith Atleo.
We are here representing the community of Ahousaht. We are part of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council.
We're here to speak about the policies and the regulations of DFO. As you're aware, we won a court case with DFO, and in the ruling the judge said that DFO's policies and management have failed the first nations. In our submission, which we have presented, we want to point out some of these things that have been brought out by the Supreme Court of B.C. with the fisheries litigation.
We also want to talk about the sockeye run in 2010. In 2010 the largest run of the Fraser River in history passed through our waters. The area G hook-and-line fishermen were always allocated the smallest share. In fact, most recent sockeye runs during this last decade have been poor. For conservation reasons we have fished only three of the largest runs. DFO normally builds a plan that allows a short opening at the first increase when the run is large.
We also traditionally access the Somass River sockeye by hook and line. Traditionally our people have used our oral history of our culture to know how large the runs were and the teachings that come from the nature side of our people over science. And it's been a proven fact. We've proven DFO wrong many times.
In 2010 DFO, in its varied run size, estimated and realized that there was a possibility of the largest run arriving. It was readily apparent in August. A huge test set in the Johnstone Strait began to indicate that the run would be large enough for the area G fishery on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Our requests for the modest fisheries in the past DFO practice of treating all southern groups were simply ignored in 2010. The reason given for this was that it made biological sense.
DFO assigned personal and new demonstration fisheries inland and in development areas but did not assign any managers to build a contingency to allow for even a small fishery in our region. West coast troll management was available all season, but DFO ignored our areas, and designated priorities to areas and groups that favoured department privatization policies.
With regard to that, we do have some recommendations that are pointed out in our submission.
We are also here because we're a small community. Our people's livelihood is sea resources. You need to understand that we were put on a reservation by the Government of Canada, and our reserve is very small because we were told by the Indian agent that our access and our food source were that big ocean. But today we're being denied that access because of DFO policies and guidelines.
So we're hoping that this submission will help you look at some of the issues that our first nations and the communities on the west coast are going through.
Thank you.