Aboriginal commercial fishery opposed by 64%
Two-thirds of British Columbians disagree with the concept of an aboriginal commercial fishery, a public opinion poll released last week has found.
The poll, conducted by the Angus Reid Group for the B.C Fisheries Survival Coalition found that 64 per cent of those surveyed opposed the idea of a commercial fishery for aboriginal peoples only, as proposed in the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy.
"British Columbians express great dissatisfaction with the idea of a separate commercial fishery for aboriginal peoples in the province," the poll summary stated. "Significantly, 42 per cent said they are "strongly opposed/indicating a firmly negative position of this issue."
An even higher percentage — 79 per cent—said they felt the B.C. commercial fishery should be controlled and enforced by an independent manager, such as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
At the same time, however, 62 per cent of respondents declared their support for "special rights for aboriginal peoples to harvest fish and wildlife for the purposes of food and sustenance."
"We're happy that the general public was able to distinguish between a fishery for food and fishery for commercial purposes," said coalition spokesperson David Secord. "We support aboriginal people having special rights for their actual food fishery, but when it comes to a commercial fishery, aboriginal people should compete on an equal basis with all Canadians."
The four-question poll was conducted among 601 B.C. households between April 13 and 17. The survey results are considered accurate to within four percentage points of what they would be had the whole adult population been surveyed.
"As you may or may not know, aboriginal people have always had the right to participate in the B.C. commercial fishery by acquiring licences like other B.C. fishers. In June of1992, the federal government adopted its Aboriginal Fishing Strategy, giving aboriginal peoples a right to a commercial fishery. Overall, would you say you support or oppose the idea of a commercial fishery for aboriginal peoples only?"
Strongly support..........l2%
Moderately support ....19%
Moderately oppose .....22%
Strongly oppose 42% Don't know......_____.........5%
AFS not an answer for land claims, UFAWU tells forum
In spite of a lot of talk and opportunities for dialogue at a Sechelt forum on the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy, at the end of the day, the dialogue and cooperation hoped for did not materialize.
The need has never been greater for unity between all groups in the fishing industry, native and non-native, John Radosevic, UFAWU president, told the open forum April 4.
The forum, sponsored by the Sechelt Indian Band invited representatives from the local forest industry, educational institutions, government departments, aboriginal organizations and nations, and the UFAWU, representing non-aboriginal fishing interests. The provincial Minister of Aboriginal affairs declined to attend the forum.
Radosevic told the gather-
• BECKER
ing there were many attacks on the fish resource through DFO policies on area licensing and quotas, the Canada-U.S. Salmon Treaty, and Canada U.S. trade regulations under free Trade.
"The United States is demanding 16 million Fraser River salmon instead of the 7 million they're now getting," Radosevic said. "Individual transferrable quota schemes to privatize common property resources are also resulting in major reallocation of fisheries resources. If you don't think these issues are going to have an impact on aboriginal and non aboriginal fisheries, then I think you better have another look."
Radosevic appealed for unity between all participants in the fishing resource.
"There's all kinds of re-allocation of the resource happening, it's not a single reallocation problem that we face," Radosevic said. "If we don't pull together on these concerns, the results could be disastrous for the fishing industry and unfortunately we're not pulling together very well."
Radosevic outlined the UFAWUs position on the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy.
"You can't have justice for some people if it's built on injustice to others," he said. "Our support for land claims in general is long, the record speaks for itself, if we can't ind a measure of justice for native people, then there
won't be justice for any Canadians, and vice versa."
"We support the settlement of land claims, and lament the lack of land claims on any other resource, logs, mining, anything. All of the attention is on fish, and that's neither good for fishing industry workers or aboriginal claims in general."
Radosevic pointed out many in the industry's concern that it had been singled out to address land claims.
"As a result there is some undue, unfair expectation placed on the fishing resource alone," he said.
Wendy Grant, vice-Chief of the Assembly of First Nations told the meeting aboriginal people were forced to go to court to achieve equality under the law in Canada. She added that there was no obligation in law that required third party participation in discussions, nor is there any obligation on the part of the Canadian government to compensate non-aboriginals for any loss of resource.
"The highest court in this land said that you can no longer treat aboriginal people as less than second class citizens," Grant said. "They have rights that are entrenched in the constitution and the Canadian government has a fiduciary obligation to make sure that those rights are taken care of, and that's what the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy is about."
She criticized positions that demanded a seat at negotiations to be informed about the impact of the AFS.
"It absolutely amazes me that when we're talking about equality that once aboriginal people get to the point of equality people start to scream," Grant said.
"What the Sparrow case says is that the Department of fisheries has an obligation to consult with the aboriginal people first after conservation.
They do not have a legal obligation but they are being considerate to the other user groups in saying how can we work this out."
UFAWU Fraser River organizer John Sutcliffe said later the DFO's administration of the AFS was almost designed for failure. He said the AFS was announced as the 1992 fishery got under way without any realistic consultation with the fishing industry.
"Right from the beginning the process has been flawed and secretive," he said. "You couldn't have designed a better process to create dissension."
There seemed to an attempt by more than one speaker to find a way to discredit the UFAWU.
Jim White from the Native Brotherhood suggested that UFAWU contracts discriminated against aboriginal
people.
"I couldn't help but think of the equalities that John Radosevic talked about this morning," White said. "Good gracious, back in when I was getting 61 cents an hour working in Namu, and the non-native person next to me was getting $1.15, and that's equality?"
Radosevic said White was clearly trying to intimate that the native Brotherhood was the organization eventually responsible for equal pay, not the union
Simon Lucas, speaking for the Aboriginal Fisheries Commission suggested that the UFAWU did nothing to guarantee quotas for aboriginal people when ITQs were being handed out on fisheries such as black cod and halibut.
"Who stood up for native people then?" Lucas demanded.
- Radosevic reminded him later the Native Brotherhood had agreed with ITQs.
NDP Member of Parliament Ray Skelly appealed to all sides in the discussion on the AFS to work together. "Politicians who represent you in terms of various levels of government often can't solve these (difficult issues) except in very arbitrary ways. Our best hope is that stakeholders can reach some preliminary •agreements on how they should go ahead, and then politicians find it very easy to implement those,"
Skelly said. "But when you begin to deal with it in arbitrary ham-fisted ways, you run into enormous difficulty, and this is of course where the government and Crosbie find themselves today."
"This was a ham-fisted implementation of a program
• RADOSEVIC
that needed to change but the way in which it's changed has caused a great deal of consternation. To the credit of the people involved on both sides, it is now shaping itself into a very worthwhile exchange of information that has to go that extra distance to come to a decision."
But Skelly's hopeful remarks weren't helped very far along by Joe Becker from the Musqueam nation.
"I commend John Crosbie, publicly, for having the foresight, and for having the balls to do something he thought
•GRANT
was right," Becker said "And unfortunately for non-native people, we're entitled to everything Mr. Crosbie is talking about and we're going to get more.
"We as Indian people are starting to get educated, and maybe that is something we can thank the European for. They are educating us now that we want to be the developers of this industry. You're going to see First Nations develop processing plants, all alongthe coast. In doing so, it's a threat. It's a threat to big industry. You think Weston likes the idea of having competition from First nations? No. You think the Westons of the world would like to lose some their major producers, who are Indian people? No way.
So we will start to see where the benefits really are," he said.
"I heard a statement this morning by John Radosevic, the fishing industry is in trouble, it's doom and gloom for the next 150 year. Well, I beg to differ with him. Industry reports are that the industry is going to do fairly well, and if it's going to do fairly well, I hope we're all there to capitalize on it. And we're going to capitalize on it."
Becker alleged there were hidden reasons people were objecting to the AFS.
"We can all work together, and we can get there, if you set aside political agendas, hidden agendas, personal gain, the opportunity is there, the resource is there, and it can be shared, it will be shared, hopefully not by litigation, no one's ever happy with litigation," he said. "You can see what Sparrow's done, it's scared the hell out of people, what's going to happen when Vander Peet comes down? I hope it come down in our favour so it really scares the hell out of you and draws you to the table."
Becker said more open forums were necessary, but he said people had to come prepared to negotiate.
"It has to happen with people who have an open mind, and there are a lot in this industry who don't have an open mind." he said. "And I don't think scare tactics are the way you're going to draw us to the table, you're only going to make us angry."
THE FISHERMAN / APRIL 23,1993 • 7