Fisheries committee  Yes. It leaves us in a very difficult place in terms of being able to carry out a lot of the work on the ground that our field officers are carrying out—and the office folks as well.

Fisheries committee  No, there are no authorities given to our guardians to enforce under the federal regulation system.

Fisheries committee  There has been some funding supported for training opportunities. As I mentioned in my previous responses, staff are working on stats to bring back to us, in order to have discussions with the department about the lack of resourcing currently in place to carry out the work.

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.

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

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  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.

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Trevor Russ, and I am the director of policy and programs for Great Bear Initiative Society, also known as Coastal First Nations with the acronym CFN. I'm also a member of the Haida nation and have been a fisherman my entire life. I have fished commercially in many federally regulated fisheries and continue to fish under my rights to provide food for my family, friends and community.