John Cummins on Questions On The Order Paper

With regard to the herring spawn-on-kelp fishery and the response to the directive of the Supreme Court of Canada in Gladstone that a new trial be held to establish the extent of licences that ought to be available to the Heiltsuk band: (a) how many spawn-on-kelp licences were in existence in 1996, 1997 and 1998, and how many of these were held by non-natives; how many were held by the Heiltsuk band, and how many were held by individual Heiltsuk band members; (b) is the government currently negotiating with aboriginal groups in regard to the nature and extent of their claim to an aboriginal right to commercially harvest spawn-on-kelp, and if so, name the aboriginal groups; (c) how many and on what basis were additional licences issued to the Heiltsuk in 1997 and 1998; were they issued to accommodate an aboriginal right; what is the limit of the Heiltsuk aboriginal right; how many licences are required to satisfy that right; what evidence was considered in making that decision; was any effort made to determine what the limit of aboriginal commercial right is and how many licences were required to accommodate that right; (d) what role did the threat of disruption of the fishery by the Heiltsuk play in the decision to provide additional licenses in 1997 and 1998; how many additional spawn-on-kelp licences were issued to the Heiltsuk; is there a plan to issue further licenses to the Heiltsuk or other aboriginal groups; and (e) what was the extent (in pounds) of Heiltsuk food allocations for spawn-on-kelp in 1997 and 1998; what is the number of Heiltsuk band members; have annual reviews of the possible extent of illegal sales of these food allocations been undertaken; and what were the findings and recommendations of these reviews?