Good morning. My name is Marilyn Slett. I am the chief councillor for the Heiltsuk Tribal Council, which is the elected leadership for the Heiltsuk First Nation. Heiltsuk thanks the committee for this opportunity to talk about the proposed amendments to the Oceans Act.
Heiltsuk peoples have lived on the central coast of B.C. and harvested marine resources for thousands of years. Archaeological evidence dates our fisheries back 14,000 years. Harvesting is central to our health and well-being, and lies at the heart of our culture. We depend on the fish and the health of their waters.
Heiltsuk supports increased powers for government to create marine protected areas, MPAs, including interim MPAs, but only if they are used to create interim and permanent MPAs to protect marine areas, especially nearshore areas that have been prioritized by our own marine use plan areas. The former federal government, despite having powers under the Oceans Act to create MPAs, did not do so in a meaningful and transparent way. Heiltsuk trusts that the federal government will not only seriously apply interim MPAs to freeze activity levels, but also seriously consider additional restrictions for interim MPAs.
Immediate additional restrictions will help curtail harms that are arising from existing activities. Many marine resources are being overfished by commercial and recreational fisheries, such that they will need more than a mere freeze at current levels of activity.
Heiltsuk has seven recommendations for improving Bill C-55. They deal mainly with the role of indigenous nations like Heiltsuk in making decisions under the Oceans Act, combined with their role in enforcing what we hope to be many more MPAs within our traditional territories. Heiltsuk also recommends increased transparency in the federal government's processes.
In a briefing note that Heiltsuk filed yesterday, we set out two examples that illustrate the fragility of our traditional harvesting areas and how they are being damaged by industrial and commercial activity. The first example is recent damage to one of our breadbasket harvesting areas. In October 2016, the Nathan E. Stewart sank and spilled about 110,000 litres of diesel and lubricant oils. We harvest at least 25 food species from the spill area. A year later, Heiltsuk's harvesting closures and DFO's bivalve closures are still in place.
A second example is the impact of the commercial and recreational fisheries on our traditional crab harvests. In the last several decades, and especially in the last few years, crab harvests have declined dramatically. We are harvesting only a fraction of what we have caught in the past. Many traditional harvesting areas are fished by commercial vessels—which can run about 200 traps at a time—and are simply stripped of crabs.
In 2008, the four central coast first nations, including Heiltsuk, told Canada that we could not harvest enough crab to meet our basic needs. We have been requesting crab closures from DFO for about nine years. It took many meetings, and eventually talk of litigation, before DFO agreed to close only one area, Troup Passage, in late 2016.
Crabs are just one species that are under pressure. Industrial and commercial activities are decimating stocks that have been a part of our way of life for thousands of years. The time has come for the federal government to use different tools, such as MPAs, to safeguard marine resources.
At present, only one marine protected area is close to Heiltsuk. That is the Hecate Strait and Queen Charlotte sponge reefs area. However, Heiltsuk has been pressing the need for more areas. I understand that other speakers have referred to the central coast first nations marine use plan, which was developed with the Province of B.C. It already identifies 17% of its area for protection.
What Heiltsuk needs is action. Heiltsuk looks forward to a process of reconciliation that includes self-government, including co-management of our marine resources. Until that occurs, we have seven recommendations for improving Bill C-55.
First, Heiltsuk seeks recognition that Heiltsuk and other coastal nations have never ceded their jurisdiction over their marine territories. Heiltsuk recommends that the power of the government to designate MPAs be exercised with the consent of directly impacted indigenous nations.
Second, Heiltsuk recommends that the Oceans Act expressly state that it does not take away from the inherent jurisdiction of indigenous nations over their traditional marine territories.
Third, Heiltsuk recommends that the many grounds for MPAs under subsection 35(1) expressly include the conservation and protection of indigenous fishery resources.
Fourth, Heiltsuk recommends that the power of government to make regulations under subsection 35(3) be extended to allow for rules. The rules must require transparency and the involvement of indigenous nations in the MPA process. The current Oceans Act does not require transparency and does not require any sort of government-to-government approach in how the government may consider or investigate or to designate MPAs.
Heiltsuk recommends an express power of government to make regulations governing how the minister receives and assesses information relating to potential and other MPAs; governing how the minister discloses information relating to potential and other MPAs to indigenous communities and to the public; giving effect to co-management agreements between the federal government and indigenous communities; governing decisions about making and working with MPAs; governing how the minister may establish advisory or other tribunals to investigate, assess and make recommendations about potential and designated MPAs; and requiring that the government consult with and obtain consent of coastal indigenous communities in relation to designating or altering potential or other MPAs.
Such regulations would be a step forward such as in article 18 of UNDRIP, the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which affirms that:
Indigenous peoples have the right to participate in decision-making in matters which would affect their rights, through representatives chosen by themselves....
Fifth, Heiltsuk supports many measures recommended by West Coast Environmental Law. Heiltsuk supports minimum content for MPAs, such as automatic restrictions on exploring for and exploiting oil or minerals.
Heiltsuk supports some degree of automatic restriction on commercial and recreational fisheries. Our ability to engage in much traditional harvesting is impaired by overfishing due to commercial and recreational fisheries. Conservation by the federal government on a discretionary basis has been, in our opinion, totally ineffective.
Heiltsuk supports a statement of first priority for ecological integrity. Heiltsuk further recommends a statement that the second priority of government be to protect indigenous fisheries. This would be consistent with the legal principle that the first priority after conservation be indigenous fishing.
Sixth, Heiltsuk recommends an express provision that authorizes the minister to designate any indigenous organization as an enforcement officer under the Oceans Act. This would recognize the role of indigenous nations enforcing MPAs that are within their traditional territories.
Seventh, Bill C-55 provides for fines but this would depend on prosecution by Canada alone. As part of a larger role for indigenous nations in managing their marine territories, Heiltsuk recommends that indigenous nations be permitted to engage in private prosecutions or alternatively have the right to bring civil action against violators with a right to seek sums comparable to the fines proposed in Bill C-55.
Civil fines could be paid into local and regional environmental funds to pay for past and future enforcement proceedings by indigenous nations for conservation activities such as impact assessments and restoration projects and for research into the baseline conditions of various MPAs. Indigenous rights of enforcement, funded by polluters and other violators, would allow for rigorous enforcement by the peoples who are most interested in protecting marine resources.
I'm just closing right now.