Madam Chair and honourable members, thank you for having me here and listening to my story.
My name is James Lawson, and I am a career fisherman. During my time I have harvested salmon and herring by seine, herring by gillnet, frozen at-sea prawns and urchins by scuba dive, and geoducks by surface-supplied dive. I grew up on boats, spending my summers out on the seiners ever since I was a baby and earning my first paycheque on half-share at 13 years old.
These years on the water got into my veins, and I will never be able to walk away from fishing despite the countless warnings I received from crew members and mentors. They all told me to go away to school and get an education to escape the fisheries. They considered it a dying industry setting sky-high lease prices on quota, insurmountable prices to buy licences, and an ever-decreasing opportunity to put gear in the water, squeezing the next generation of fishermen away in a monetary stranglehold.
I heeded their words in part, went to university, and obtained a bachelor of science, but now that I have had a taste of the fishing lifestyle, I can't get it out of my heart.
I decided to be a fisherman like my father and his father before him. It is my family's legacy. We have been fishing since time immemorial. I am a Heiltsuk band member through my father, and my mother is Tsimshian. I also have strong blood ties in the Nisga'a and Haisla nations. These are all coastal areas with small communities strung across the land that have leaned heavily on fishing, communities like Bella Bella, King Cove, Kitimat, and Port Simpson.
Look to the archeological excavations on Calvert Island, and you will see that my people have been fishing these waters for at least 15,000 years. These communities are scattered up and down the coast and are yearning for fishing to make its triumphant return to them, bringing socio-economic benefit.
Many of these would-be communities have already died, such as Namu and Butedale. Some places, such as Ocean Falls and Klemtu, have turned to alternative sources of income, such as farmed fish, much to the disdain of their struggling neighbours still trying to uphold wild fisheries.
There is a certain understanding that people need to support themselves somehow, but it further divides an already splintered fishing community. The Heiltsuk, with their main community of Bella Bella situated close to Klemtu and Ocean Falls, have issued a statement denouncing fish farms in their waters in support of the Swanson occupation in the Broughton Archipelago.
It's hard to sit idle as we watch this access loss go to foreign and domestic investors who have no intention of going out on the seas and fishing the product themselves. We have been cast into the role of serfs upon the sea, toiling to catch fish to get paid at a fraction of its landed value because we are under the heavy-handed entities who charge what they feel for doling out access. It is supposed to be a common resource for British Columbians, not a luxury held by a few.
This increasing privatization feels like it has certain parallels in history. In pre-contact times, the nations fished our traditional waters both to feed ourselves and to harvest commodities desired in trade from neighbouring nations. All the work was done in each respective nation's waters, in practice adhering to adjacency policies. Over time, this simple system eroded away and was radically changed by introductions such as a new fishing fleet of settlers, a transformation of fish to being an economic commodity first and a sustenance commodity second, and the introduction of licensure to be allowed to harvest.
Companies staked a claim on many of these licences, and everybody felt the wrath. Fishers were under their thumb and companies jealously guarded their access to the resource. Fishers oftentimes had to bend to the wills of the companies. Everyone felt the wrath of price-fixing, and first nation groups largely felt like they had been stripped of their inherent right to fish in their unceded territories.
Where first it was first nations losing access and companies holding power over all fishermen, it is much the same for commercial fishermen today. They are losing their access to people with large sums of money and are having to pay hefty lease prices to remain in work. The reconciliation amending the loss of first nations' access is still ongoing today, and I wonder how long it will be before today's commercial fleet is being reconciled for being driven out of the water by policy. When will the owner-operators be the ones to have control over their own destiny?
Currently, non-operating investors are holding so much quota on licence that they have the power to streamline processing to centralized locations and to be the ones who set a price on a product caught by others. The wealth is not benefiting many, as it is intended, but few. Small-town B.C. sees very little of the benefit when the owners who have the access aren't community members. They're being crushed by practices aimed at earning investors and buying companies maximum profit, which do little for the well-being of places like Bella Bella, but it is very hard to stand up and correct this practice when somebody else holds the key to your earning ability and when the cost to buy your own access is so prohibitive.
There are some bright spots. I have the advantage of the PICFI and the aboriginal fisheries strategy programs on my side, since I am first nation. Without these supports, I would never have set my degree aside and obtained my fishing master fourth class or commercial diver certifications. Without the hope these programs offered to somebody like me I would never have invested myself as much to join the area B harvest committee or attend community-building workshops like the BC Young Fisherman's Gathering.
There is some opportunity out there. For instance, I just participated in a test charter for herring in my nation's traditional waters for 23 days on my family's boat, but not all is as beneficial as it seems. The system is not perfect.
The Central Coast Commercial Fisheries Association, which serves four first nations on the central coast, has eight urchin licences but 10 certified divers. That's not enough to get us all on our feet and established in our own business. In some cases this is just the opposite: there isn't a big enough base of willing career fishermen to draw from to get all these licences fished by central coast first nations operations.
These programs are there to help us gain access through government funding, and even they are competing with the non-operating investors. I just watched two sea cucumber licences get purchased for $2.5 million, prices that these programs have trouble competing with and that are prohibitive to a young man like me trying to break in and have a chance at making it.
Stopping this non-operator investment practice has the potential to halt and reverse the price spike of access and make return on investment more reasonable.
This isn't just a chance to satisfy a select group of individuals. This is an opportunity for coastal rehabilitation. Give the benefit of B.C. fish back to the fishermen through steps toward owner-operator policies. Having this broad base of empowered fishers will funnel economic gain through small communities via increased adjacency practices. Talk to these coastal characters and mine their immense wealth of knowledge for their takes on conservation and management. Keep us included and involved. We have a great interest in keeping our lifestyle alive. You will struggle to find more passionate wardens of the sea than those who have invested their lives into it.
We are the fabric of this rugged and majestic coastline, icons of British Columbia, and we are going extinct. Think of the father out in the spring gale shaking herring for 48 hours in an open skiff; the salmon skipper mentoring the next generation on the ground and wondering if they will even be able to take over his operation; the woman skippering a pram boat with her daughters on board; or the diver spending hours under water harvesting in the surge and the depths to make his wage. Then ask yourself why they have to pay somebody else who doesn't have the skill set or the desire to be there.
Give us back our power and voice by taking steps toward owner-operator policy, and we'll do our part in taking care of small coastal communities in B.C. in speaking up for conservation and effective management.
Thank you for your time.