Fisheries Committee on April 24th, 2018

[Linda Nowlan]

No.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

What are these foundations, then, that you get money from?

[Linda Nowlan]

We've had grants since the organization was started in 1974 from the Law Foundation of British Columbia, which is a provincial foundation that gets its money from interest on lawyers' trust accounts. There's one in each province. We've had grants since then.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Are there any other foundations?

[Linda Nowlan]

Yes, there are lots of other foundations: the Real Estate Foundation of British Columbia, some American foundations, the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. We have received money from Tides Canada. In our annual report, we have a full list of all our sources of funding.

[Larry Miller, Conservative, Bruce—Grey—Owen Sound, ON]

Okay.

Am I out of time?

[The Chair]

Sorry, Mr. Miller, but you're out of time. Thank you.

Mr. McDonald, you have five minutes, please.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to our witnesses, in person and by video conference.

Mr. Post, it was interesting to hear you talk about how you have maintained things. It puts a burden on your budget, I guess, to continue maintaining something that you've excavated or dug a ditch to prevent flooding upstream somewhere, perhaps for people who live in your town. To me, by doing it you're probably saving money in the long run, because you're not going in and being challenged by a resident to sue the town or whatever because of the flooding taking place.

We had a similar situation, I guess, speaking as a former councillor and mayor of my hometown, with a very slow-moving river. Every time there was a good heavy rain, there would be flooding. We tried to get permission. It seemed like it was going on and on and on, until we found out through some source that with a flooding issue, next time you're in fear of a flood, go out to the river with your excavator and fix it. You don't need permission to do it. We did exactly that, and to my knowledge, we didn't get in any trouble. DFO probably came up afterwards and looked at it.

Sometimes in an emergency situation, it's probably easier to ask for forgiveness than it is to ask for permission. I'd like you to comment on how it works in your municipality and on your dealings with DFO.

[Duane Post]

I don't disagree with you that typically it is easier to ask for forgiveness. However, we don't really want to put our taxpayers under that kind of stress. We'd rather get the approvals. That's the system we have, right? Get the approvals in place, do the work, and see the results. That's how we want to proceed with all of our ditch work.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

We just found that getting the approvals took years.

[Duane Post]

Yes.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

It dragged out so long and the problem continued. But thank you for that.

Ms. Nowlan, you mentioned the aquaculture industry, as did my colleague Mr. Donnelly, that we are to regulate it, and yes, I agree. I think it needs to have an act of its own, simply because of the way aquaculture operates and the differences between that and a commercial fishery. I recently spoke to a very well-known, very big processor in my province. Their comment was that the population of the world is getting bigger, and the fish resources that are being fished are for the most part getting smaller. Somewhere, you have to find a way for that very valuable protein to be available to the masses of the world, and it's their feeling that aquaculture will be the answer to that for many types of fish and whatnot.

Could you comment on the gap that they predict will happen with the wild fishery and on aquaculture having to fill that gap?

[Linda Nowlan]

You're right. It's really important for food security around the world and also here in Canada and in our north and on all three coasts. To me, it's critical that aquaculture doesn't negatively impact wild fish. That's key. We have to make sure that doesn't happen, however we can. That's number one.

Number two is we need to make sure our wild fish stay healthy so they don't keep diminishing. I think Minister LeBlanc recently announced more action on illegal, unreported fishing. That is a direction in which we need to go to make sure wild fish continue. On aquaculture, I believe MP Donnelly has sponsored a private member's bill about moving toward closed containment aquaculture, land-based containment, and there are promising developments in that area. It may not solve the world's problems but it's one possible solution.

I think we want to go in a number of directions, but the bottom line is, do we want our wild fish to survive?

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

I think there are probably problems with both land-based or sea-based until we get it straightened out, and as you said, do it right.

[The Chair]

You have five seconds, Mr. McDonald.

[Ken McDonald, Liberal, Avalon, NL]

Okay. I'll say thank you.

[The Chair]

Before we move on to our next panel, Mr. Arnold has asked for a point of clarification. I'm going to give you one minute to do that.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

It shouldn't take me that long. I just wanted to provide clarification on the reed canary grass that was mentioned. It's a non-native invasive species that grows seven or eight feet tall, pulls over in the winter, smothers everything else. It becomes a monocultural environment. That's part of the reason the municipalities need to control this on the waterfront and in Salmon Arm where I live. It has completely pushed out the native bulrushes. It does need to be managed.

Thank you.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Arnold.

Thank you, Mr. Post from British Columbia. Ms. Nowlan, thank you, and it was good to see you again.

We're going to suspend for a few minutes and change witnesses.

[The Chair]

This is hour two on the Fisheries Act. We have three presenters.

We have appearing as individuals Chelsey Ellis, Cailyn Siider, and James Lawson.

Each of you will have 10 minutes to provide your opening remarks.

We're going to start with Mr. Lawson, please.

[James Lawson, As an Individual]

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.

[The Chair]

Thank you, Mr. Lawson. You did it with some time to spare.

Ms. Cailyn Siider.

[Cailyn Siider, As an Individual]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and honourable committee members, for inviting us to appear as witnesses and share with you our unique stories and perspectives in regard to our experiences as commercial fishermen on the west coast.

I apologize in advance for my lack of organization and a well-prepared presentation. We three were given less than 72 hours' notice to organize ourselves in time to be here to appear in person. James and I had recently travelled to Prince Rupert and were given little choice but to appear here today wearing our gumboots. Because of this, the words I have prepared today are largely anecdotal and from my heart.

My name is Cailyn Siider. I'm a fifth-generation commercial fisherman from Sointula, British Columbia. I have actively fished for more than a half of my life, beginning with gillnetting for salmon and trawling for shrimp on my family's 38-foot boat, the Milly III. My family is currently actively engaged in the salmon, halibut, rockfish, herring, Dungeness crab, and shrimp fisheries. I've spent most of my adult life crewing on salmon seine boats, as well as prawning, and most recently salmon trolling off the north coast of B.C. I am fortunate to have grown up within and around many examples of multi-generational fishing families.

After I leave Ottawa this evening, I will return to the west coast to begin preparations to fish prawns on a multi-generational family boat from Campbell River. Following the prawn season, I will begin the northern salmon troll season on an independently owned boat from Pender Harbour. Unfortunately, these examples of independent, multi-generational family fishing operations have become the exception rather than the norm on the west coast.

I am currently in the process of completing my B.A. in peace and conflict studies, a program devoted to social justice, community-building, and grassroots social change. I chose this program because I believe that, coupled with my passion and intimate knowledge of the commercial fishing industry, I may have an opportunity to help turn the tide of the devastation that current fisheries policy on the west coast has inflicted upon my family, my friends, and the communities I belong to and cherish. Being invited here today helps to solidify this belief that there is hope for our communities and a future for young fishermen, like Chelsey, James, and me. We want to be the future of the commercial fishery on the west coast, but we need your help.

Now I'll explain a little more about who I am and where I come from.

As previously mentioned, I'm from Sointula, which is a tiny community on Malcolm Island, nestled between northern Vancouver Island and the mainland at the intersection of Queen Charlotte and Johnstone Strait. Malcolm Island sits just west of the Broughton Archipelago, and along the migration route for the majority of salmon that return every year to the Fraser River. This is in the heart of the traditional territory of the Kwakwaka’wakw peoples, who have lived off the riches of the ocean since time immemorial.

My family are settlers to the B.C. coast. On both sides of my family my ancestors immigrated to Canada from Finland at the turn of the 20th century. They moved west, eventually finding themselves in the newly established utopian community of Sointula. These settlers from Finland were farmers and poets and philosophers who were not prepared for the coastal climate of the Pacific Northwest. A theme in fishing that most fishermen will be able to attest to is that you need to be resilient, adaptable, resourceful, and creative. Five generations back, my family learned this the hard way. Some took to the forest; most took to the sea. Since then, Sointula has been well established and known up and down the coast as a coastal fishing community.

I represent the fifth generation of my family to be an active fish harvester involved with the commercial fishery in B.C. My first summer fishing I was two and a half years old. My parents and I travelled to Haida Gwaii to gillnet chum salmon in Cumshewa Inlet. The trip west across the open waters of Queen Charlotte Sound made me seasick. On the trip back, after we were finished fishing, I sat on my father's lap as he navigated us through the open ocean swell. I squealed, “Wee, Daddy, do it again”, every time we could ride down from a swell and green water would crash over the bow. I got over my seasickness and have been fishing ever since.

I spent summers as a teenager gillnetting salmon with my dad, exploring the B.C. coast and spending time in the communities that rely on the health and sustainability of our fisheries. My sisters and I would take turns going out on openings. We learned work ethics, community values, independence, how to live off the ocean, camaraderie, and respect and appreciation for the coast and all the gifts it gives us. As I grew older, graduated from high school, and began exploring the world on my own, I continued to return every year to the coast to fish and spend time in my home community of Sointula and the fishing community that extends up and down the B.C. coast. I'm a member of the B.C. Young Fishermen's Network and the UFAWU.

I have sat on industry advisory boards and have been engaged in grassroots movements around salmon fishing most of my life. The first letter I ever wrote and decided to send was an opinionated piece, written in crayon, to fisheries minister Fred Mifflin, when I was six years old.

Growing up in Sointula, we had two operational fish plants: McMillan's, in the heart of the breakwater, and Lions Gate, uptown. Sointula had a large gillnet, trawl, and seine fleet. If you lived in town and didn't fish, you worked at a plant. If you didn't work at a plant, you worked at the pub or the co-op store, somewhere that was sustained by the money made by fishermen or shore workers.

There is an urban myth in Sointula that it once boasted the highest per capita income tax bills anywhere in Canada. I didn't fact check this, but during Sointula's boom years, I don't doubt it.

Today, Sointula has a handful of gillnetters, no trawlers, and one seine boat that hasn't fished in years. The fish plants that I used to visit with my dad and grandpa, where the old fishermen would sneak me candies while they jawed politics over cups of coffee, are long gone. The co-op store runs at a fraction of the capacity it once did. The pub is open during tourist season, if you're lucky. People my age and young families have migrated out of Sointula. Rumours resurface every few years about whether the elementary school will close. Thankfully, it remains open.

This is not a story unique to Sointula. This narrative is repeated up and down the coast, from Ucluelet to Prince Rupert to Alert Bay. Our communities are suffering and have been suffering for a long time. This damage is a direct result of the increasing privatization and corporate control of our commercial fisheries. Due to federal policy and opportunistic corporations, we have been pushed out of our homes, our communities, and our livelihoods. The Canadian Fishing Company or a foreign investor doesn't care about the preservation of coastal communities. Jimmy Pattison does not care about Sointula or Bella Bella or Port Hardy. The investment of these companies in the sustainability of our fish and fisheries is just that, an investment. As coastal communities, we have a vested interest in the sustainability and stewardship of our fish and fisheries because it means that our children and grandchildren will be able to eat wild salmon, to see the sun rise over the open Pacific Ocean, and they will be able to live the same adventurous, fulfilling, and beautiful life we have, if they so choose.

Our legacy is the health of our coast, the succession of family ways of life, and the vitality of our communities. The Canadian Fishing Company has its bottom line to look out for. We have our families, communities. and coasts to look out for.

To have owner-operator policy entrenched within the Fisheries Act would help to empower us on the west coast with the agency to rebuild the commercial fishing industry in such a way that benefits active, independent fishermen and their families and communities, not just the highest bidder. Adjacency would help us breathe life back into our communities and allow them to hopefully return to the Sointula that exists in my memory.

We need preservation, protection, and promotion of not simply commercial licence holders, which would mean anyone with enough money to buy a licence, such as a corporation, but we need preservation, protection, and promotion of active, independent commercial fisherman.

Jim Pattison's tax writeoff of a commercial fishing fleet does not need protection. Independent commercial fisherman like us speaking in front of you today do. Otherwise, we are doomed to live our lives as tax writeoffs for Jim Pattison and other disconnected corporate investors.

Until we change this, my livelihood, my life, is just part of an investment or tax writeoff for a corporation. I deserve more than that. Our coastal communities and active independent fishermen deserve more than that. We deserve to be treated the same as our brothers and sisters on the east coast. It's outrageous that there is a west coast fisheries management model and an east coast model. Where is that line where fisheries policy in Canada changes? Does fisheries policy suddenly change in Ottawa? Does it change when the corporate lobby on the west coast decides it does?

Whatever this change process ends up looking like, I firmly believe it needs to come from the ground up rather than the top down. This change needs to be centred around and led by coastal communities and active, independent fisherman. Anything less would run the risk of perpetuating this harmful cycle of corporate control of our common resource.

These are the first steps in a long process, but we are representative of the young fishermen in B.C. who are ready for it, who are energetic and motivated and want to go for it. Being intentional and paying attention to this process is just as important as any goal we work toward.

Chelsey, James, and I are young fishermen. Just the three of us, being so young, represent 40-plus years of experience actively fishing on the water. Imagine the hundreds or even thousands of years a room full of fisher men and women, such as at the Fisheries for Communities Gathering, represent. The traditional and community knowledge within that room, within our fleets and communities, is invaluable. Change needs to come from that experience, from those voices, from our voices.

That's a little snapshot of who I am and why Bill C-68 and these proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act are important to me. I appear here to provide anecdotal evidence that speaks to my experience as a young fisherman from a long lineage of women and men who have made their lives on and beside the sea. To adopt into the Fisheries Act, actively though carefully, practised policies such as owner-operator will be to help us carry on these lifestyles and traditions that we love so much.

I believe strongly in the power of storytelling. Storytelling has the power to bring people together and change the world. There is a great divide between this room where we are now and the communities we all come from and represent. It should not and does not have to be this way. All of us here now have a responsibility and role to play in closing this divide.

I hope that at the end of the day, we all have the same vision for the west coast: healthy oceans and thriving communities. Community engagement is critical. Listening to, respecting, and acting upon traditional community knowledge is fundamental in realizing this vision.

I urge you to continue listening to our voices, to our stories. If there is one certainty of all fishermen, aside from our independence and stubbornness, it's that we all have stories to tell.

The time to act is now, because as any old fisherman might tell you, the tide waits for no man and very few women.

Thank you for having us here today to share our stories with you.

[The Chair]

Thank you very much, Ms. Siider. You did a great job. It doesn't matter if you have gumboots on or not, you did a phenomenal job.

[Cailyn Siider]

Thank you.