[Witness speaks in Sm'algyax]
My name is Conrad Bernard Lewis. I am the vice-president of UFAWU-Unifor local 31, and I am also a general member of the executive board of our union.
We come to you today with a major concern over the closure of the canning operations in the Prince Rupert plant and the number of people who will be subjected yet again to major quality-of-life challenges. These challenges are created by one group, and in our particular case, it is the Canadian Fishing Company, owned by the Jim Pattison Group.
We are told that other industries will come as a replacement to our invaluable resource, a resource that we treasure, that we hold sacred. When there is danger to our source of sustenance, then they are not replacements; they are tools for destruction of our haun, our salmon, and we always stand steadfast against these types of threats.
In the north, we Tsimshian, Nisga'a, Haida, Haisla, Gitxsan, Wet'suwet'en, and Tahltan have always benefited from a shared commodity, haun, salmon for invaluable sustenance, sustenance beyond calculable or appraisable value.
Since time immemorial, we have lived by an unwritten, solid rule, a rule of adjacency. We Tsimshian and others could not go to Gitxsan territory and harvest from there, just as they and others could not come to Gitxaala and harvest there. We harvested in our own territory, according to adjacency. Then we travelled and traded with our fellow nations.
Through time, industries slowly but surely encroached on that. I use the word “encroached” because they built their canneries near our territories for easy access to the resource of haun, salmon, and they employed our people.
Through time, however, they started consolidating their operations to urban areas, closing plants close to our territories, so our people moved as well. We moved as transients at first, but then because of the monetary gain from our invaluable resource, we were able to buy homes and cars and live in those urban centres.
Now the Jim Pattison Group has moved to Alaska, using transient workers there and canning just as much and more as they have ever done. They are packing up our invaluable resource and exporting it to other places.
This committee has an opportunity to stand by our people, all first nations, and enforce a rule that has always existed here among us, here on the coast of B.C. That rule is, again, adjacency.
Please do not make a decision from desks in the east without seeing us, without coming to talk to us. Come and make a solid decision that works for all: all Tsimshian, Nisga'a, Haida, Haisla, Gitxsan, Wet'suwet'en, and Tahltan. Bring adjacency back to our people and stand proudly beside coastal first nations, as your government has openly stated it wants to do.
Wai wah. Thank You.