[Witness spoke in Kwakwala]
[English]
I'm a first nations fisher from Alert Bay. I was born December 25, 1942 and I've been fishing as a commercial fisherman since I was 13 years old.
What I have here today and what I am about to do is to share with you from my heart. Do you see any papers sitting here? No, because it's going to come from here. I'm one of the registered chiefs from my tribal group and I was asked by our chiefs, “Have you ever seen a chief in the big house talk from a paper?” Because when it comes from the paper it comes from the paper, but when a chief or a person speaks from the heart, people will understand him.
I asked my chief—because I was strapped when I was a kid for speaking my language when I was five years old and going to school. I can't speak my language fluently, and I told my uncle and he said, “[Witness spoke in Kwakwala], nobody will ever speak for you again.”
I said, “I can only speak English”, and he said, “If you speak from the heart, everybody will understand you.”
When I started fishing on the seine, you could walk on the fish. I, my father and my grandfather had the right, as first nations fishermen, to get up each morning and go anywhere to fish.
One thing I'd like to state for the record is that in 1922 my grandmother was with Allied Tribes and was in Ottawa speaking for the rights of first nations. Here I am, almost 100 years later, and I'm the president of the Native Brotherhood. If in 1922 I were doing what I am doing now, I would've been in jail, because we weren't allowed to speak in public about politics.
Here I am, I'm speaking here. The president of the Native Brotherhood said, “We will knock at the doors and knock at the doors, and one day our children will walk through the doors of government.”
Brothers and sisters, that door is open for me today and I thank all of you here for listening to me, because when I was asked to come here, I was wondering what I could do. If I can't go to the top...I've been speaking to the bottom. I'm on the herring advisory committee. I'm on the salmon advisory committee. I've been on all of these different boards, and one of the things I've seen is how the Mifflin plan came into effect, and they bought boats and they bought licences, and you know what? From the Alaskan border to the mouth of the Fraser River, they bought boats and they bought boats and they bought boats, and they called it a volunteer program. The brother here and another brother said that we talk about the companies but I've never heard anybody talk about first nations. The boats that the Canadian Fishing Company sold are all up in Alaska, and the majority of those skippers who were running their boats were first nations. They sold the jobs of the first nations people from Alaska to the Fraser River.
Our people were wiped out as if Mifflin and the Government of Canada dropped a bomb on the coastal first nations people. You bought those licences, and if a man didn't sell his licence, the company would have taken it or the bank would have taken it.
You heard the man say that we helped some of our fishermen buy a boat, but if you buy a boat for somebody, who are you going to own? You're going to own them, and that's what the company has done for us. They gave the money to us; we bought boats, and then they took them back. The majority of the same fleet is owned by the Canadian Fishing Company, Earling and a guy called Rifleman, who made all of his money in gold.
From one end of the coast to the other, we had 40 seine boats in my band. Do you know how many we have today? One.
As the president of the Native Brotherhood, I went to the Queen Charlotte Islands, what is called Haida Gwaii. As the president, I wanted to make the same trip that Alfred Adams made in 1930. I went to the Queen Charlotte Islands, I went to Prince Rupert, I went to Kitkatla and all the tribal villages all the way down to the Fraser River after Mifflin.
I feel like crying now, because when I talked to the kids.... I asked a roomful of people in Skidegate in the Queen Charlotte Islands, “Would any of you like to fish?” The kids, 14 and 15 years old, held their hands up, and they said, “I'll never be able to fish because my father sold my right to fish. He sold the boat.”
Those first nations fishermen who sold their licences sold the whole line of their family. Do you know what that is to do that? And look today. When Mifflin bought the buyback, I heard all these people say, “Oh, you Indians are doing good, we're going to do this”. Do you know that when Canadian Fishing and the BC Packers sold them licences—they bought them—sold their boats, BC Packers, the biggest company.... We had skippers who were running the boats cutting grass to try to make money to live in my community up and down the coast. They said, “We're going to help you rebuild your tribe”. No, brothers and sisters, they didn't. They haven't built that.
And you know what? When you drop that bomb on the coastal people or the first nations people, not only first nations but the other non-first nations.... Nobody has come and taken a look at what you did, the devastation of the Mifflin plan. Nobody has come to take a look. And my tears, my pain, and I'm sharing this....
I thank you for the opportunity, brothers and sisters, to be here because my people are dying from one end of the coast to the other. Drugs and alcohol are rampant in every little village. Does anybody care? I hope that I can give you my vision and my heart to be able to see where our people are. I'm talking about all the tribal groups.
You heard the brother from Canadian Fishing talking about the canneries. Well, those canneries were a majority of first nations people. All the way up and down the coast, the canneries were sold. Packers were sold. Seine boats were sold. And you know what? Here we have an organization with first nations and non-first nations. When we went to the companies, like the Canadian Fishing Company and other companies that run this.... The lady here who runs the organizations, we go to them.
You know, today I go out fishing and I don't even know what my price is going to be with the Canadian Fishing Company. “We'll pay you 30¢ for pink salmon.” Because you know in the past years we had the UFAWU, the United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union and the Native Brotherhood.... I hope I'm not speaking too long. You can cut me off if you want, but I've been all my life with that. We had organizations that fought for prices for us before you went out. Now we don't have that.
I sat in a meeting with a man called Rob Morley, from Canadian Fishing at the Native Brotherhood convention. He said, “We're going to pay you as little as we can.” And we got a letter from the Canadian Fishing Company that said, “We'll no longer pay your welfare fund”. Who have we got to go to, our people? Nobody. We have nobody to represent us. I would love to have somebody from your group to come up and down and the coast and see the decision the Government of Canada made. They were talking treaty. “Buy licences for the PICFI. It's going to help you Indians.” It hasn't helped us much. We have one seine boat that fishes in Johnstone Strait. You know what? It's only a one-day fishery.
We'll give you 20 gillnetters, a one-day fishery for the year and two days on the chums. How is that?
You tell me that you are looking after us first nations. I put my hand out to you. What can you do? I'm asking you to help us. Quotas haven't helped us. These companies might tell you that. Quotas haven't helped you. When they told me last week, we're going to have fewer herring boats go out, we don't need all of it. On the quota fishery our people, the first nations, are the victims of change. Seventy-per cent of Canadian fishers are first nations. How much of the fleet's going to be wiped out when everything goes?
Brothers and sisters, I ask you today to send somebody out to help us as a coastal people, not only first nations, but the coastal people. You are never going to bring it back. Please.
You know there was no benchmark. Mifflin came. They just came in and bought. They didn't care about how many villages and municipalities they wiped out. There wasn't an, “Okay, we're going to stop here. Alert Bay needs 10 boats. We're going to go there.” You know what? We give our own people licences but they've got to pay the money to use those licences. They get 50% of 50%.
I thank you today. I ask you from the bottom of my heart, and from my people of the first nations, help us. Please help us. That's all I can say.
[Witness spoke in Kwakwala]