Evidence of meeting #94 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was nations.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Brendan Hanley Liberal Yukon, YT
Okay. Again that circles back to resources, implementation and support for the implementation of the objectives of the council.
I want to now move to Mr. Ned-Kwilosintun. You've talked a lot about knowledge and applicability of indigenous law, but you also have this RELAW project about how indigenous laws relate to watershed management and several documents in that regard.
I wonder if you could describe RELAW for us and its relevance to this conversation.
Executive Director, Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance
I'll give it a try, but we do have experts in that field who would be much better at articulating that. Essentially we're going back to our historic and oral stories and documenting them. We're going to our leadership. We're even going to current knowledge holders as well as elders who can articulate our connectivity to salmon, our connectivity to the Fraser River and the tributaries and waters in this territory. We're articulating that into this RELAW project.
Essentially DFO and other regimes in the province of B.C. have been asking what indigenous law really means. This is our way of articulating our oral stories into written form and translating that for public consumption.
Liberal
Brendan Hanley Liberal Yukon, YT
That sounds like a pretty good description.
Do I have 15 seconds left?
January 30th, 2024 / 5:15 p.m.
Liberal
Executive Director, Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance
Absolutely. It would give us the opportunity, and we'll translate that for you.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Hanley.
We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for two and a half minutes or less, please.
Bloc
Caroline Desbiens Bloc Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île dOrléans—Charlevoix, QC
Mr. Chair, since my colleague is more familiar with this area than I am, I will yield my time to her.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to Caroline for allowing me to have some extra space.
I'm going to start with Mr. Russ.
Mr. Russ, you talked about the importance of collaborative governance around the nation-to-nation, Inuit-to-Crown and government-to-government negotiations.
I'm wondering, given what you were talking about around the sensationalization and inaccurate accusations that are happening around first nations rights as they relate to fishing, if you're seeing any examples of the government providing the space for indigenous and non-indigenous people to be able to work together, to be able to share information or to be able to bridge the gap of inaccuracies so that we're not seeing first nations and non-first nations being pegged against each other.
Director, Policy and Programs, Coastal First Nations - Great Bear Initiative
I would say that it is the objective of the comanagement agreement under the fisheries resources and reconciliation agreement that we recently signed with our nations and the Department of Fisheries, but we haven't seen it play out fully yet today.
There's one example that I would give, but it's restricted to an indigenous-only fishery. It is the razor clam fishery on Haida Gwaii. It's been comanaged for a number of years. In recent years it's been declining, but I think it sets the example of government-to-government working together to set a fisheries management plan.
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you.
Perhaps I could ask the same question to Mr. Ned-Kwilosintun.
Could you share if you've seen any examples of DFO providing an avenue for indigenous and non-indigenous people to be able to have these bigger discussions around the path forward and to ensure that there's a clear understanding around indigenous rights amongst everybody?
Executive Director, Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance
They provide it through the integrated fisheries management plans and the Pacific Salmon Treaty, but it has always provided challenges, mostly because first nations, as I mentioned in my opening comments, are considered advisers with the stakeholders versus decision-makers. In those general terms, we're only, as first nations, making recommendations to either the minister or those who are at the Pacific Salmon Commission and the Pacific Salmon Treaty.
There's a format for it, but it's not very conducive to the government-to-government relationships that first nations aspire to.
I'll finish by saying that, even though that's not happening in the lower Fraser, what we've decided to do is to take government out of the process. We've established what's called the lower Fraser collaborative table with 24 of our first nations, seven recreational agencies and the area E commercial fishery. We've established a relationship mostly out of crisis. The fact is that we are managing what's left, and there's a need to work together. We've taken government out of the equation. We've established a table. The challenging thing is that we don't have the resources from government to keep the table going, but hopefully one day....
NDP
Lisa Marie Barron NDP Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC
Thank you.
Perhaps I'll continue on that for a moment.
I'm trying to understand what the path forward is to reduce the amount of.... We're seeing a lot of information being shared that's not factual, or there's a lack of understanding around first nations' constitutional rights and so on.
Do you have any insights around what might be a good way to have all those who are heavily invested in our fisheries be able to work together on the same page to understand first nations' rights, rather than having any animosities? We are seeing acts of racism as a result.
Do you have any thoughts on how we can move forward?
Executive Director, Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance
If I could share a model that is in my mind from the lower Fraser first nations, it would be government-to-government-to-government relations, but with the provision that there's still opportunity for stakeholders to be at that table as advisers and have a technical table with western science and indigenous knowledge.
In my mind, and in our minds as nations, we have it ready to go. We just need UNDRIP and reconciliation as part of that implementation.
As I mentioned earlier, stakeholders and first nations are always going to be competing unless we can get into the same room. That's why there's the interest in the lower Fraser for having a centre for collaboration and co-operation that deals with all things lower Fraser first nations, with all the parties able to join in that venue to deal with the salmon crisis that we have.
I'm probably taking some of Greg's time, so I'll stop there.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Ms. Barron.
We'll now go to Mr. Perkins for five minutes or less, please.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses, for coming. It's an important study. I appreciate your contribution.
I'm from the east coast, so forgive me if I'm not as fully knowledgeable about all the agreements that you have in B.C.
As part of this study, some of that IUU is unreported. We have some issues with that on the east coast with our commercial fishermen too, but I'll come to that in a minute.
In the processes of the first nations that you represent in your alliances and associations, how do you collect data on the actual catches for the species you're fishing—both commercially and for FSC—and record them? Also, do you also record a bycatch in both FSC and the commercial fishery?
Perhaps I could start with Mr. Russ since you're in the room, and then I'll ask the other two.
Director, Policy and Programs, Coastal First Nations - Great Bear Initiative
Thank you.
Again, I'm fairly new to my position at CFN, but I've worked for the Haida in the past. I can elaborate a bit on what the Haida do in Haida Gwaii.
If the commercial fishers are coming in, typically the guardians will attend the off-load, and they'll record the catch that's coming in. If it's a dual fishery, they'll record both the commercial catch and the rights-based access catch.
The other part that is monitored is more on a voluntary basis, which is referenced on the recreational side. Because they don't have any enforcement authorities, it's really just a question that's asked and the fisher has to be willing to share their information.
Executive Director, Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance
Thank you for the question.
In the lower Fraser, DFO has supported catch monitoring through its AFS program. We have at least five or six first nations and then an aggregate of about 23 first nations and independent organizations that do the catch monitoring, including the bycatch.
From my understanding, it's at least 60% of sampling for the fishery, which is probably the highest in B.C., if not Canada.
Executive Director, Fraser Salmon Management Council
I probably don't have a whole lot to add to what was already said.
I would like to mention one important fact. First nations do have some unreported fisheries, which are mainly in the river.
DFO enforces the ocean first nation fisheries very closely. It's 100% in a lot of cases. For some reason, for those unreported and illegal catches in mid-river, mainly around small, traditional and communal dip-net fisheries, there's no enforcement. It kind of gives a bad message to those who are willing to be monitored and other small groups who aren't. It's mixed messaging.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
That's an interesting point.
I just have a quick follow-up for all of you. Do you share that data with DFO?
Director, Policy and Programs, Coastal First Nations - Great Bear Initiative
Yes, I believe the information is shared on our end.