FISH and SHIPS
LETTERS to the EDITOR
Who carries burden of conservation?
Editor, The Fisherman:
Why is the gillnet section of the fishing industry being called upon to shoulder the main burden of conservation of spring salmon?
As I read the latest amendments to the fisheries regulations, they amount to a total closure on spring salmon gillnetting in the whole of District 1.
This action is taken at the time when sport fishermen are reporting record catches of spring salmon.
Alec Merriman writes in the August 1 issue of the Victoria Colonist, "Fantastic! That is the only word to describe Vancouver Island salmon fishing this summer . . .
"Entries to the Colonist King Fishermen Contest have been coming in so fast the contest secretary hasn't been able to get them all typed — and there simply hasn't been enough space to get them all listed in the paper."
Merriman is referring to all salmon runs in those statements but you only need to read the landings and see the photos in this same issue of the Colonist to come to the conclusion that spring salmon make up a very
large portion of these "fantastic" landings — at the same time that commercial spring salmon gill-net fishermen are faced with a complete closure.
Merriman, of course, gets copies of the commercial closure notices, but you would have to break his arms and legs before you would get him to admit in print that commercial fishermen make any contribution toward conservation.
It's the same so called "sportsman" columnist who carries on his continuous vendetta against commercial net fishermen through the columns of the Colonist as well as contributing feature articles to sport fishermen's publications about the "wall of nets" in Areas 19 and 20.
But what does this warped mind have to say now in his column when sport fishermen are enjoying "fantastic" fishing despite the fact that there are three days a week of net fishing in Areas 19 and 20?
He says: "Sports trollers are having more luck than usual for sockeye this year. It's only in recent years they have taken sockeye on sport gear . . . Must be a change in feeding patterns."
All of a sudden, when it suits
Merriman's purpose, he becomes aware that salmon have feeding patterns which might change. This, of course, is not the situation when sport fishermen cannot catch the salmon. Then he trots out his "wall of nets" theory.
With the ever increasing fishing pressure being created by sport fisheries on all species of salmon, the department is going to have to face up to its responsibilities and institute some drastic closures in the sport fishing section of the industry.
The commercial section cannot carry the entire conservation program when it is suddenly found that a certain run of salmon is endangered, as appears to be the case in relation to this particular run of Fraser River spring salmon.
ELGIN (SCOTTY) NEISH Victoria, B.C.
• The Fisherman welcomes letters to the editor, asking only that they carry the address from which they are written and be signed by the writer, although names will be withheld from publication on request.
yHE letterhead reproduced at the bottom of this page is a living piece of history, first, because Gosse Packing Company Ltd. ceased to exist as such 46 years ago and second, because it was used on July 16 this year for a letter to UFAWU welfare director Glenn McEachern.
The writer of the letter was John Hornbrook and we assume he got the letterhead from one of the few buildings still standing on the site of the old reduction plant at Ecoole, where he has lived for years. A longtime UFAWU member, he fished the gillnetter Cheri until failing health compelled him to quit last year.
Over a period of 35 years Gosse became one of the best known names in the British Columbia fishing industry. According to Cicely Lyons, in her book Salmon: Our Heritage, Capt. Richard E. Gosse came to this province from his native Newfoundland in 1887, variously fishing and operating a ferry on the Fraser River until he became a cannery building contractor in 1894.
Three years later he became a cannery manager for J. H. Todd and Sons Ltd., originally established as a wholesale grocery supplier at Victoria in 1875, which entered the salmon industry in 1882 by acquiring the Richmond Cannery.
• In 1907 Gosse acquired his own cannery on Sergeaunt Passage off Knight Inlet. Then, in 1909, he and Francis Millerd formed Gosse-Millerd Packing Company Ltd., reorganized as Gosse-Millerd Company Ltd. in 1921. Millerd resigned in 1922 and Gosse Packing Comoany Ltd., the successor, merged in 1928 with B.C. Fishing and Packing Company Ltd. to found B.C. Packers Ltd.
After reading this, and it's only a small part of the intricate pattern of acquisitions and mergers by which B.C. Packers gained monopoly control of the B.C. fishing industry, is it any wonder that B.C. Packers was able to conceal its control of Nelson Bros. Fisheries from the Senate-Commons investigating committee back in 1966 — until its own corporate needs made the disclosure necessary.
Add to your collection of federal election analyses this one
PEI mackerel fishermen talk union
WHILE a temporary solution has been found to the dispute between striking Prince Edward Island mackerel fishermen and fish buyers, and provincial fisheries minister George Henderson has appointed a six-man task force to study alleged price gouging in the industry, the prevailing mood among fishermen is of discontent and a major move toward union organization may be their next step.
Richard Cashin, president of the Newfoundland Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union, chartered with the Canadian Food and Allied Workers Union, was to visit Charlottetown to meet with fishermen from all three Maritime provinces. He was coming at the invitation of the PEI Federation of Labor following a request from fishermen.
New Brunswick fishermen are paid seven cents a pound for mackerel while Nova Scotia fishermen receive five to seven cents. "Islanders will be paid only four cents, and it's this differential that's at the heart of the inquiry into alleged price gouging," according to labor federation president Jim Gyurus.
It was he who announced that the impasse between fishermen and fish buyers had been broken — for the time being.
He met with Henderson and
said he had promised a complete investigation into the mackerel fishery, and if contents of the task force report warrant it, the seeking of a federal subsidy to help buyers pay fishermen more for their catches.
Gyurus said that one of the more significant things to come out of their meeting was the minister's pledge to support unionizing of PEI fishermen — "if that is what the men want." He added that Henderson said he was prepared to introduce necessary legislation this fall to help them set up a union.
In order for fishermen to agree to resume operations, a request for a temporary increased price had to be guaranteed by the buyers. An agreement was apparently reached and catches were selling for four cents a pound instead of two cents a pound, the price paid prior to the strike, which started early in July.
President Arthur Bruce of the PEI Fishermen's Association, which represents 1,700 Island fishermen, says that "prices for all groundfish are too low and the request of mackerel fishermen for five cents per pound is justified in view of increasing operation costs."
He claims there is too wide a spread between the price fishermen receive and the price charged the consumer. Fishermen receive six to seven cents for two mackerel. The same fish sell in the retail store for 59 cents.
The National Farmers Union also has had something to say about the mackerel fishermen's plight. NFU district director Urban Laughlin says they have been exploited. He suggests that fishermen would benefit from establishment of a government commission similar to the one provided for in 1973 legislation allowing producers of a farm crop to set up a bargaining unit to represent their interests before government.
Charging that Henderson's task force was nothing but "a delaying tactic," he pledged the NFU to giving whatever financial support it could to fishermen in their struggle.
One fisherman reported to a meeting that mackerel seine nets have gone up in price from $3,000
to $6,000 in one year. Rope has gone up from 65 cents a pound to $1.05 and gasoline and equipment has gone up 15 to 100 percent.
He also accused the fish companies of charging unreasonable markups.
"Bait for lobster fishermen this spring cost 14 cents a pound at the same factory that had purchased the same fish for three cents a pound," he declared.
Private citizens' and consumers' groups also demonstrated their support for the fishermen during the two-week strike. Promotion of a full scale citizens' inquiry into the fish processing industry headed a five-point program adopted. Also planned was a national boycott of National Sea and H. B. Nickerson products.
Organizer of a large citizens' meeting, Mario Carota, said National Sea Products, which last year reported profits exceeding $1.5 million, would pay out less than $200,000 extra to fishermen if it met demands for five cents a pound.
by Jack Davis, as quoted by the Vancouver Province, in stepping down as environment minister on August 8:
Liberal fortunes in Capilano (which Davis first won with a 21,000 majority in 1968 and lost to Conservative Ron Huntingdon by 6,000 votes last month) were hurt mainly because a consensus developed in B.C. that the Conservatives might be forming a majority government.
Another factor was a reaction against the NDP, which became a reaction against the Liberals because of NDP support for the minority Trudeau government in the last parliament.
This is as profound an explanation as we've yet heard of the Liberals' success in doubling their British Columbia representation, although Davis lost his own seat.
We also note that Social Credit is holding a "policy mini-convention" of its members in the three North Shore provincial ridings on August 24. The invitation "to make known your ideas to the next government of British Columbia . . . under the leadership of Bill Bennett" lists 15 "policy areas". And to show that the younger Bennett is in the true image of the old man, labor comes bottom of the list.
Our phone has been busy this week with people correcting errors in the UFAWU list of small boats cleared for salmon as published in our July 27 issue.
The Sue, listed to Arthur Tanner, should have been listed to Grant L. Morrison, to whom Tanner, now an honorary member, sold the boat last fall. The Audrey 2, listed to Hans Esten-sen, was sold in 1972 to Norman Iverson, who fishes for Prince Rupert Fishermen's Co-op.
And John Norum of North Delta and District Local, who fishes the Flika, wants to make sure no one confuses his boat with the Flicker, listed by the UFAWU as having fished during salmon and herring strikes.
Presumably the loss is covered by insurance or else B.C. Packers' next profit announcement will be slightly less encouraging than the last to thieves who decided to rip off a little of it for themselves — $16,000 in 20 and 50-dollar bills, to be exact, taken by non-shareholders who broke into the company's fish plant at Ucluelet on August 4.
Ranks of UFAWU honorary members have thinned this past month by the deaths of Steve Perica, on August 5, and Matthew Fee, retired tenderman, on July 8.
Matt Fee, who was 76, was a familiar figure at Fishermen's Hall in Vancouver. Back in the forties he was advertising manager for the B.C. Lumber Worker, now the Western Canadian Lumber Worker, for the IWA, and he still kept his hand in by selling the occasional ad for The Fisherman.
As we go to press, we have word of the death of Yoshida Takeshi while he was gillnetting on the Skeena River.
138 East Cordova Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6A 1K9 Phone 683-9655
25 CENTS A COPY $7 A YEAR $8 FOREIGN
HAL GRIFFIN, Editor RICHARD MORGAN, Assistant Editor
Second class mail registration number 1576 Published by the Fisherman Publishing Society every Second Friday Deadline: Wednesday prior to publication.
4/THE FISHERMAN — AUGUST 9, 1974
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• Pilchards still supported a thriving fishery on the west coast and canned pilchards were a Goose Millerd product when this letterhead was printed in England half a century ago.
