U.S. violation of interim fisheries pact charged
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Canadian trailers being 'squeezed out' of zone
Vol. 42, No. 9
2 Vancouver, B.C. 25 cents
May 6, 1977
Richard Morgan photo
* Another tote of frozen roe herring leaves Vancouver Ice and Cold Storage at foot of Gore Avenue, abstracted from Canadian Fishing Company's silent production lines next door where UFAWU shoreworkers had only minimal employment this season. While prices in excess of 50 cents a pound for the frozen product were registered in inter-company deals, Canfisco night shift workers got only four days' work.
Norpac 'farming out' scored
Roe exports steal jobs
Mass unemployment is casting its shadow over the fishing industry as fishing companies continue to export large tonnages of frozen roe herring for overseas processing while B.C. shore-workers are idled.
Maximum allowable exports of round herring were dropped this year from 25 to five percent of total production. Yet five percent of.this season's landings of 83,000 tons still is a lot of herring — and a bitter loss of work at a time when the qualifying period for unemployment insurance benefits is due to jump from eight to 12 weeks.
While shoreworkers at B.C. Packers' Imperial plant will be busy with herring to the end of this month, at the Canadian Fishing Company's Home plant the night shift had only four days' work and the day shift only slightly longer. Yet while Can-fisco's production line lay still, cartons of frozen herring were being loaded from the premises onto a truck, reportedly bound for Gold River and shipment to Japan.
Protests to management by Home plant shop stewards have proved futile. Canfisco says it must prepare the plant for the salmon season, yet canning doesn't start until July.
Next door, at Vancouver Cold Storage, a forklift loads frozen herring ont o a truck for shipment to some undisclosed plant in the lower mainland. For export? For See ROE — page 6
Bargaining rights decision reserved
A decision by the Supreme Court of Canada on whether the Canada Labor Code applies to labor relations between fishermen and processors is not expected for about two months.
The high court heard technical arguments in Ottawa this week, then reserved judgment whether a federal court was correct in 1974 in issuing an order restraining the Canada Labor Relations Board from proceeding with certification applications submitted by the UFAWU.
Mr. Justice Addy of the federal court ruled that the labor code is not applicable to relations between fishermen and the processing companies, and his decision was upheld by a federal appeal court, but later was appealed to the Supreme Court by the union and the board.
Canadian trailers are being systematically squeezed out of the U.S. west coast extended fishery zone even though the ink is barely dry on a Canada-U.S. interim fishries agreement freezing fishing patterns for at least this year.
UFAWU secretary George Hewison made the charge this week, claiming the Canadian government has failed to defend this country's fishery interests during transition to its own 200-mile fishing zone.
Hewison was among industry advisors summoned to Ottawa last week to be told by federal fisheries minister Romeo LeBlanc that Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau would object personally to U.S. President Jimmy Carter the Americans' expulsion of Canadian trollers from Washington state waters April 15 to 30.
The move cost Canadian trollers an estimated quarter million dollars in spring salmon production and was in direct violation of the interim agreement reached following discussions between Trudeau and Carter in March, Hewison claimed.
Though it transpired that Trudeau's execurive assistant, Ivan Head, contacted his counterpart in Washington, D.C. to convey Canada's displeasure, it is becoming apparent that the Americans intend to tighten the screws still further to redistribute salmon catches in their own favor.
The Ottawa meeting was held April 29. On May 4 word reached the UFAWU that U.S. authorities would invoke further options applying to both American and Canadian trollers in waters north of Tillamook Point by increasing the coho minimum size by two inches to 28 inches and imposing a September 15 closure — a month-and-a-half earlier than normal.
The U.S. moves are the outcome of several years of "pussyfooting" by Canadian negotiators around hardening U.S. attitudes regarding mutual interceptions of salmon and stepped-up U.S. demands for recognition of so-called historic rights to Fraser-bound fish.
"The U.S. has been whittling away at Canadian fisheries for years, now they are chopping away huge chunks at a time," Hewison declared.
"It is the pussy-footing which has got us into this mess, and the mess will get a lot worse for the fishermen unless the government adopts a tougher stand.
"The latest spectacle is the U.S. action in curtailing and removing Canadian troll fishermen from the Washington coast, in complete contradiction to the Canada-U.S. interim reciprocal fisheries agreement.
"Next on the chopping block will be our halibut, or our fisheries in the East coast. See PACT —page 6
DR. W. E. JOHNSON ... named Fisheries acting director-general in Pacific region.
Johnson in, Geen out
Describing himself as "not a true civil servant," Dr Glen Geen told The Fisherman this week he will return to teaching and research at Simon Fraser University sooner than expected following a parting of the ways in his job with the Fisheries Service.
Geen was appointed Pacific regional fisheries management director-general late in 1974 and said he had intended to return to university life at the end of this year in any case.
He said he decided some months ago he didn't want to make "a commitment forever to the civil service" and it was "a personality thing" that hastened his move.
This he defined as an example of the sort of problems that typify civil services generally — his style grated with their style in someways "and vice versa."
Geen's termination with Fisheries Pacific region was announced April 25 by assistant deputy minister D. J. McEachran.
Dr W. E. (Wally) Johnson's appointment as acting director general was effective as of that date. McEachran said Johnson would serve until a public service competition was completed for a permanent appointment to the position.
Geen lectured in marine and freshwater biology and carried on research at SFU prior to his appointment. He also was involved in university administration at the departmental level but doubts he will re-enter that particular field.
Kitimat oil pipeline hearings open
UFA WU seeks funding to prepare case
KITIMAT — The Kitimat oil pipeline inquiry kicked off here this week with a preliminary hearing May 4 chaired by commissioner Dr. Andrew Thompson, a professor of law at University of B.C. and former chairman of the B.C. Energy Board.
Appointed by federal environment minister Romeo LeBlanc and transport minister Otto Lang, Thompson will inquire into social, environmental, fisheries and navigational aspects of the proposed tanker route and oil terminal.
The UFAWU will be a major participant in the hearings and
has applied for government funds to prepare and advance its case.
UFAWU president Jack Nichol told the commission that while a member of the 21-organization Coalition Against Oil Tankers and supporter of the coalition's application for funding of $456,000, it has an obligation to its members to make the best possible case on behalf of the fisheries.
The union is applying for $27,000 to engage, for the duration of the hearings, a program director-researcher and a fisheries biologist who is an environmental activist.
Nichol told the commission the union does not comprise "the entire fishing industry" and should not be required to expend union funds to battle an oil port application over which it has no control. He suggested that the oil corporations should bear all costs incurred by intervenors.
The purpose of this week's preminery meeting was to hear procedural proposals and submissions from groups seeking to intervene and requesting funding.
Formal hearings will commence July 11 and will be held at
Kitimat, Prince Rupert and Vancouver.
The environmental impact and fisheries phase is scheduled for Prince Rupert starting about November 1. The UFAWU had proposed a delay in the start of all hearings to October 15 to enable fishermen to participate.
The oil corporations are in a hurry, which probably explains a lot.
Commissioner Thompson has declared that his terms of reference, as laid down by the privy council, are sufficiently broad to permit him to make recom-
mendations whether or not the oilport application should be approved — a contention the pipeline companies dispute.
The final decision rests with the federal government, if it has jurisdiction, and will be a political not an environmental decision.
"The union in its written submission reserves the right to continue its opposition fight politically in the event the commissioner's final recommendation favors the oil port and pipeline, and denies that its participation in the hearings and acceptance of See KITIMAT — page 12