Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Good afternoon to everyone.
I'm going to say a few words in our language very briefly, but I will interpret.
[Witness spoke in Nuu-chah-nulth and provided the following translation:]
On behalf of Ha’wiih from Ahousaht, I'd like to formally thank the House Standing Committee on Fisheries for the invitation to talk about a most important issue affecting the whole west coast of Canada.
[English]
In particular, our area is severely impacted by what we're talking about.
I'll give you a little background in terms of pre-contact. Most streams and rivers contained salmon in British Columbia. Some had sockeye, some had Chinook and some had both. Others had chum, coho and steelhead. Some had pinks. Larger rivers had all species. Indigenous people managed them all very well.
Since contact, the newcomers learned to harvest and process all the species. Canneries existed on the Skeena River, Rivers Inlet, Fraser River, Nootka, Ceepeecee, Kildonan, Port Alberni, Victoria, Prince Rupert, Bella Coola, Namu and Tofino Inlet. I did make a mistake in my written document, saying that I'm not aware of any canneries operating today. There is one. It's called St. Jean's. It is partly owned by first nations people from Nuu-chah-nulth.
In terms of my history with fisheries, I grew up in Ahousaht. Every family used to participate in a commercial salmon fishery. Our participation enabled our community to be self-sustained. We didn't have to travel far because we fished most of our local stocks. All species were plentiful. All indigenous nations were similar to ours. We trolled, we gilnetted and we seined. This was 60 years ago.
Over time, our participation was reduced, as were the run sizes of all species. In the 1980s, salmon farms were permitted to operate on inlets and bays of the west coast of Vancouver Island. It was around this time that the Canadian government used our trollers to target U.S. chinook stocks. The strategy was to force the U.S. into negotiating what became the Pacific Salmon Treaty. However, our west coast of Vancouver Island chinook stocks were impacted negatively by this strategy. Our chinook stocks have never recovered from that policy and the policies that allowed large numbers of open-net pen fish farms to operate in west coast of Vancouver Island waters. Other species that have suffered as well are sockeye, chum, coho, pink and steelhead.
The existence of salmon farms along the west coast of Vancouver Island migration routes have severely impacted rebuilding efforts of all species.
The management by our Department of Fisheries and Oceans has not helped either. The evidence is that with the newcomers, laws were enacted with good intentions, with conservation being rather prominent in legislation, only to have DFO fall way short of upholding the law. DFO has the authority to manage, with devastating results. This evidence of shortcomings in management has resulted in the current dismal state of salmon stock coast-wide.
Poor logging and inappropriate land use policies by the B.C. provincial government have contributed to the destruction of salmon habitat. Functional habitat is required for long-term rebuilding of all salmon stocks in British Columbia.
Poor action in addressing climate change by all governments is not helping either.
Thank you.