Health committee  Marsi. I appreciate this time.

Health committee  Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity today. I am the chief of a very small community—

Health committee  Okay. Thank you. As the former minister of health and social services for the government of the Yukon, I was responsible for identifying the opioid crisis, as well as the COVID pandemic. At the same time, I worked as a lead negotiator for my first nation, a small, isolated aboriginal community in north Yukon.

Fisheries committee  Thank you.

Fisheries committee  For a presence on the ground, you need to look at collaboration among the Government of Yukon, Yukon first nations and Canada. We all have an obligation. Taking a softer approach to management rather than an enforcement approach will get us a long way to collaboration, and then we need to allow our participants in our communities to do their part to preserve, protect and conserve the few salmon that migrate by their communities.

Fisheries committee  What a great question. If you look at the mandate letter of the Minister of DFO, it talks about the mandate to look at better integration of traditional knowledge in planning and policy decisions. It speaks about the collaboration of fishery arrangements. As indigenous knowledge-keepers, we speak about meeting climate obligations.

Fisheries committee  I can't answer that question, but I know they've not been there for a number of years. They moved their enforcement agency to B.C. We have no presence on the Porcupine or Yukon main stems.

Fisheries committee  I would say not. You're seeing all of the however many billions of dollars going into B.C. and not going into the Yukon. We have no enforcement in the Yukon. The decisions about the closure are left up to the indigenous communities to implement. We are left to implement the enforcement measures ourselves, which is not fair because the self-government agreement sets parameters.

Fisheries committee  Already, the fishing branch, or Ni'iinlii Njik, park is unique. The river itself disappears for five kilometres and then reappears. It has high oxygenation. It has the headwaters, so it's a very unique ecosystem. In that regard, the temperatures and climate are changing two times faster than anywhere else in north Yukon.

Fisheries committee  Interestingly enough, as I sat on the Yukon River Panel, a question came up around mining and the impacts and effects of mining. If you do a Google search, all the evidence is there with respect to mining and the impacts and effects of the placer industry or quartz industry in the United States.

Fisheries committee  Thank you.

Fisheries committee  I will not speak to what happened in the United States. I will say that we understand there may have been pulse openings and closures in Alaska. There may have been fishing outside of the pulse openings and closures when there were salmon restrictions on fishing put in place.

Fisheries committee  That's correct.

Fisheries committee  I would venture to say no. If you look at the mouth, there are plenty of salmon and other species coming in, so there are huge opportunities. The fish are managed in zones. They're managed through five different zones in the state of Alaska. They're regulated up the tributary, and they come in, in abundance, at the mouth of the river.

Fisheries committee  They're just not making it that far.