[Witness spoke in Kwak'wala]
[English]
I've acknowledged you all as knowledgeable and respectful people. I'll give you my traditional name, which is Galagame’. I'm from what you may know as the Broughton Archipelago. The words I am going to share today are from my heart and on behalf of many, many first nations of British Columbia. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to present to you today.
I open my testimony to you by stating that the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance completely supports previous FOPO meeting presenters Andrew Bateman and Brian Riddell of the Pacific Salmon Foundation and Gideon Mordecai of the University of British Columbia. Their combined testimony outlines extremely well the absolute disaster that is the Canadian science advisory secretariat in relationship to the open-net pen fish farm industry.
CSAS as a peer review secretariat has zero credibility with the first nation members of the First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance. When one examines the CSAS process, this is of course no surprise at all. A so-called science peer review process that allows a proponent, which is a fish farm company; industry [Technical difficulty—Editor]; and stakeholders, which are industry associations; to participate from the beginning to the end of this process is utterly and completely lacking any measure of objectivity or credibility. Canada's environment, wild fish and citizens deserve far more from government.
CSAS is a shining example of the environment within DFO that needs to be meticulously analyzed and restored back to its original mandate—namely, the mandate of actually working to protect the environment and wild fish for Canadians. You would be hard pressed to find a single first nation in B.C. that would state that DFO is doing a good job in managing wild salmon in British Columbia. This is well earned, given that I cannot think of a single wild salmon run in B.C. that could be characterized as healthy or abundant.
Oft spoken about are the aboriginal rights that first nations have, recognized in section 35(1) of Canada's Constitution, the Sparrow decision of Canada's Supreme Court and the government's commitment to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. These three legal realities speak to food security. It has been said to me that 90% of B.C. first nations rely upon wild salmon. Again, that's 90% of 203 first nations. This means that wild salmon is far more than a simple menu choice. It is the foundation for culture and traditions, and of course a staple traditional food that is now becoming near impossible to attain for these purposes.
The decision that DFO minister Joyce Murray will be making soon needs to be deeply guided by the legal realities of the Supreme Court of Canada and Canada's constitutional protection of aboriginal rights. Simply stated, this is a case of rights versus the privilege of a licence.
DFO has accomplished measures of agreement in B.C. with some first nations. I suggest that these will suffer in credibility and function if transitioning open-net cage fish farms, as committed to by this government and supported by all parties, does not occur. A recent poll of British Columbians demonstrates vast support for this transition.
I attended a recent DFO ministers round table for this transition. The framework questions to guide discussions were entirely predictable and offensive. Frankly, they represented a buffalo jump of a predetermined outcome. This opinion was expressed very clearly by all the first nation chiefs who attended, demonstrating further the need for substantive change within the DFO to remove science from management so that the minister can enjoy clear information and recommendations that are unbiased and not continue to have government direction consistently undermined by DFO staff.
This was abundantly clear in the recent Mowi court decision on DFO Minister Jordan's decision for the Discovery Islands, where the director of aquaculture stated, which I will paraphrase, that she had no idea that not issuing the fish farm licences was being considered. This is preposterous, as I know for a fact that Ms. Allison Webb attended many of the first nation consultation sessions with Discovery Islands first nations, which I was part of. Not issuing these fish farm licences was spoken of at every consultation session.
Previous FOPO reports, and both federal and provincial government commitments to UNDRIP, call for greater involvement of first nations in the management of wild salmon in British Columbia. This is also found within the previous DFO parliamentary secretary MP Terry Beech's “what we heard” report pertaining to developing and implementing the transition of open-net cage fish farms from B.C. waters. This needs to occur.
For today's topic of CSAS and science, first nations can play a clear and objective role in this effort. One outcome of the Broughton fish farm LOU, which I helped negotiate—and of course it is the first time Canada witnessed the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—was the building of a genome lab housed at the Okanagan Nation Alliance hatchery.
This prepares first nations to accomplish science that is leading edge with an outcome that is focused solely on identifying disease and pathogen threats to constitutionally protected food security. True arm's-length resourcing for this lab could be invaluable to safeguard severely depleted wild salmon and escape the environment of DFO as a captured regulator of the fish farm industry. The environment, wild salmon, first nations and the citizens of Canada deserve far better than what we are experiencing today.
When I was part of the consultation process for the Discovery Islands, the first question that I asked Jay Parsons was about the CSAS process itself. I asked him about the proponents of science and about industry and about stakeholders. This elicited about a four-minute speech non-answer.