Fisheries Committee on Jan. 30th, 2024

[Murray Ned-Kwilosintun]

I think what you're asking is whether or not the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' enforcement understands our inherent rights and obligations, and I would say no. That will take some time in terms of educating and bringing enough awareness. I think there's some interest there, but the answer is no. We'd love to provide them with that opportunity. I mentioned the revitalization of our indigenous law for land, air and water project. That's some of the work we're doing with indigenous knowledge right now. We'd love to share that information with anybody who's willing to listen.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you for that.

Mr. Russ, being from Haida Gwaii, you're probably out in the open ocean doing what you do. I wanted to talk about any observations you have of foreign fisheries coming in, usually with the big factory ships that we hear about. What evidence have you seen that this kind of activity is happening, which constitutes a pretty major illegal fishery?

[Trevor Russ]

Thank you for your question.

From where I reside in the northern part of Haida Gwaii, I wouldn't say that we've seen illegal vessels come into our territory, but there definitely are ground trawling vessels that come in as well as factory-sized trawlers that fish in Haida Gwaii waters and are regulated by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. As far as my understanding is concerned, from reports that I have had and in talking with the Haida nation, in their monitoring system they haven't flagged any that are foreign.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

That's hopefully good to know. Hopefully that's an accurate picture of what's actually going on or, more importantly, what's not going on.

Sticking with you, Mr. Russ, we have the whole issue of the illegal, unreported and unregulated fishery. I think we can all easily see that provisions for indigenous fisheries could be on a collision course with UNDRIP and FSC. We've already had some references to destructive activities as a result of some of this. Are you comfortable that conservation is going to be maintained, observed and respected within both the UNDRIP rules and the FSC fishery?

Are you quite confident that we're catching the right fish at the right time of the year for purposes of, obviously, protecting stocks and making sure that there's an abundance off into the future?

[Trevor Russ]

Thank you. That's a good question.

As long as we continue to work together to ensure that there is a fair and proper allocation to first nations communities based on their right to access, and we continue to work together in comanaging that access.... I believe that conservation is one of the top priorities from both a first nations perspective and what I believe the Crown's to be as well, at the same time. We're not there, but I think as we progress forward, similarly to the agreement that I mentioned under the FRRA, although it doesn't address rights, it does address commercial access. I believe the path forward can show us working together government to government. We can make that a priority.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Until we get there—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie. You've gone a little bit over.

We'll now go to Madame Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Chair.

I’ll now turn to you, Mr. Witzky.

You spoke of the importance of further restricting fisheries in order to protect the resource.

Quebec is also experiencing all kinds of resource problems. These days, we’re hearing a lot about the shrimp fishery. Twenty-five years ago, it was cod. Certain pelagic fisheries, such as herring and mackerel, were also shut down. This time around, we’re hearing that shrimp boats will remain docked, and that the solutions provided are neither sufficient nor adequate to ensure the very survival of our region’s fishing economy.

Are you also concerned by this situation on the Pacific Coast? I’m talking about this sort of nonchalance or lack of responsiveness, when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is faced with conditions like those you and the fishermen of the St. Lawrence are experiencing. There’s a failure to provide a sufficiently focused and seasoned response, which means that time passes and resources end up collapsing before we can react.

Is what I’m talking about also important on the Pacific Coast?

[Greg Witzky]

Thank you. I thought I heard my name when I was switching over to English from French, so I'll offer an answer to that question.

I definitely find that the salmon depletion is primarily due to economics. You can't eat money. It's nice to have some money, but it's not the end-all of everything. Until we get our priorities straight as people of this one earth, we'll always be struggling.

Indigenous people have known what to do for 10,000 or more years, since time immemorial. Western science has really, in 150 years, brought us to the brink of extinction and extirpation in a lot of runs. Let's give indigenous people their rightful chance to help bring back this resource, which is resilient. They can recover. We just need to give them the chance. Indigenous peoples have in our spirit to make a movement to bring back the salmon. We just all need to do it together.

One example for me would be to have an observer who's indigenous sitting in a room when the sport fisher advisers or commercial fishery advisers are telling DFO what they think so that we can counter what they're saying, because what is produced and brought forward to the decision-makers is not always true and real. We need to be in the room, because we aren't. Hopefully, that helps.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Do you think you are being consulted enough? Are your observations given sufficient consideration by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in your opinion?

[Greg Witzky]

I'd like to think they are. The younger generation of DFO employees and scientists are slowly starting to come around. The old school “Indian fighters”, as we like to call them, are slowly retiring and not involved in the systemic problems that happened for a number of decades, so I'd like to say that we are.

We do have a great opportunity with the Fraser Salmon Management Council, where I'm the director. We have signed an agreement, and the minister has signed an agreement, but it's so painstakingly slow to implement. There's not enough funding, and there are three staff, me and two others, who are doing the work of eight to 10 staff. We're woefully in need of capacity building and funds. The minister has agreed to work together with indigenous people in B.C. on the Fraser to manage and conserve salmon. We want them to hold that promise up. By doing that, it's going to call for resources.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Witzky.

Mr. Russ, do you feel that the government and DFO are paying enough attention to your assessment of the situation and the solutions you feel are best to protect the resource on your end?

In Quebec, the terrain, the environment, the fishermen themselves and their knowledge are not always taken into proper consideration. Is this also the case on the Pacific Coast?

[Trevor Russ]

Thank you.

I believe that it's still a place we need to get to. As I mentioned in my opening comments, we have a fairly new agreement, where we've agreed to come to the table to codevelop and comanage fisheries in our region. That's yet to get under way.

What history tells us is, no, it hasn't done that, but there is some optimism that going forward there is a good path we're trying to lay out to continue to work together.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses, both virtual and in person. This is a really important part of this study. I'm happy to have you all here.

My questions for this round, if I have more than one, will be for Mr. Russ.

Mr. Russ, I'm wondering if you can share with us a little bit about the coastal guardian watchmen program through the Coastal First Nations. How is that operated and how might that interconnect with what we're talking about?

[Trevor Russ]

I can give you a brief snapshot.

For our guardian program, essentially each of our member nations has a guardian program that monitors each respective marine territory. They basically go out and keep an eye out for anybody within the territory who's doing illegal activity. They also do a lot of research in partnership with some of the other agreements that we have, both with B.C. and with Canada.

It's supported through the agreements we have with B.C., which lead to the ability to sell atmospheric benefits. We've also created a small fund that's managed by the coast opportunity fund, which has some sustainable funding for us over time.

There's very minimal support for our communities. They're always challenged to find the financial resources to carry out the entirety of the work, but they work very hard with the limited access to resources they have.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

In your opening remarks, you also talked about the often inaccurate and sensationalized accusations involving first nations surrounding illegal, unregulated and unreported fishing.

I'm wondering if you can share a little bit about what you're seeing and about the impacts on first nations and in the fishing community.

[Trevor Russ]

I guess a lot of what I've seen is that the enforcement in my area typically has a lot of focus around rights-based access and enforcing that more so than in other fisheries. I've witnessed, first-hand, individuals having their product confiscated, but then never going through the court system. It kind of gets tossed aside fairly quickly afterwards.

Those are some of the situations we've seen. I know it's been mentioned by previous speakers as well that there's very little enforcement out there, in reference to the sport sector as well.

The focus on the rights-based fishery being an illegal activity is somewhat challenging, I believe. The chair mentioned a bit of that earlier as well. It's a challenging piece of the educational piece, and I think it's part of what needs to come.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

Just to clarify, you were saying that there are fishers getting their catch confiscated with no follow-up. Can you just clarify that a bit more, please?

[Trevor Russ]

In the past, I've witnessed fishers who have been trying to make a moderate livelihood through social ceremonial harvest have it confiscated by DFO officers with some charges allocated to them. Then it never goes to the court system afterwards. It typically gets thrown out.

In recent years, at least on Haida Gwaii—I can't speak for all the other communities—I've witnessed in my own community that there's more of a communal approach to it. The officers who confiscate some of the fish turn around and work together with the Haida nation to distribute that fish amongst the community, so it doesn't go to waste.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

To clarify, is that process of communal redistribution of the catch happening or not happening?

[Trevor Russ]

It happens in Haida Gwaii, but I'm not sure about our other communities at this moment.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

You also mentioned, in your opening comments, the fact that, “The federal government must ensure that any related efforts are supported administratively and are sufficiently and predictably resourced.”

I'm wondering if you can share more of your thoughts on that.

[Trevor Russ]

What I can speak about is the past aboriginal fishing strategy agreement. It's a very old agreement. It was allocated a certain administrative number for implementation over time. That number hasn't changed over time. With the growth of administrative work, there's no increase for financial resources allocated to that.

We're just entering year three under the FRRA arrangement. The work is still getting going. Our staff are already starting to bring awareness to us that there is some concern about being under-resourced in carrying out the work we committed to under that arrangement. In that agreement, there is a commitment to do a review after three years. We're just trying to get the governance structures up and running so we can proceed forward.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

Can you clarify the impacts on this program if it's under-resourced and on the ability to follow through?