Madam Speaker, as I stated earlier, they have not actually consulted indigenous communities. The chief of the Qualicum First Nation has not even had a phone call from DFO to be consulted. In fact, they are concerned about DFO science, and for good reason.
Four of the five fisheries in British Columbia are closed. Chief, or hegus, Williams, as they go by hegus in the Klallam language, says, “I'm still not a one hundred per cent believer in their science. Their science said they could fish on the inside here and it's just devastated the fishery here.”
It is closed, and the herring have almost vanished. There are concerns from indigenous communities and around the world about DFO science. Stephen Hume's article, in Focus on Victoria, says that in the 1950s, overfishing of Japan's herring led to a collapse. In the 1960s, it was the California sardine. Herring fisheries in Alaska and B.C. were closed in the 1960s. Overfishing destroyed herring stocks off Iceland, Norway and Russia. In 1972, they overfished the Peruvian anchovy fishery. In 1992, it was the Atlantic cod.
We do not want it to be the herring roe fishery in the Strait of Georgia in the Salish Sea. We are calling on the government to do the right thing, listen to local knowledge, trust indigenous knowledge, and do not make this the final chapter of the herring roe fishery on the coast of British Columbia.