Native leaders want to meet government over native commercial fishery

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 13/07/2006 (7120 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

VANCOUVER (CP) – Federal Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice got an icy reception from members of the Assembly of First Nations Thursday when he confirmed his government won’t support a native-only commercial salmon fishery.

“There is no constitutional right to have a commercial fishery segregated on a racial basis,” Prentice said in a speech to the assembly.

Doug Kelly, chief of the Sto:lo Nation in the Fraser Valley, said Prime Minister Stephen Harper is unravelling years of good work and good will between natives and the Department of Fisheries.

Kelly said natives are wondering where the prime minister got the authority to override Supreme Court of Canada decisions.

“We’re concerned he’s acting this way when he holds a minority government. We’re afraid, very afraid of what this man will be like in a majority government.”

Kelly said several court decisions have upheld the three rights of fishing – food, social and ceremonial.

He said it’s the “social” part of those decisions that includes economic issues.

During his speech, Prentice only mentioned fishing for food and ceremonial purposes.

Harper’s letter to the Calgary Herald hinting of the changes in the fishery said his government has moved quickly on an agenda “for all right-thinking Canadians.”

The letter goes on to say in the coming months his government will strike a judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River salmon fishery and oppose racially divided fisheries programs.

“There is no raced-based fishery,” said Phil Fontaine, leader of the Assembly of First Nations.

Fontaine told reporters the federal government’s position on the fishery, its recent refusal to follow through on the Kelowna Accord and its rejection of the UN declaration on indigenous peoples sets a definite tone.

“You put all these together and it leaves us wondering what this government’s true agenda is as far as our people are concerned,” he said.

Native leaders have asked for a meeting with Harper, Prentice and the Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn.

Liberal fisheries critic Anita Neville urges the government to accept the offer to meet.

She said in a news release the prime minister should confirm “in person and in a non-confrontational manner, that he is prepared to violate the fishing rights held by aboriginal Canadians and confirmed by the Supreme Court of Canada.”

Confrontation and violence on the Fraser River also concerns Kelly, who said comments such as those coming from federal government only encourages what he calls “rogue fishermen.”

He said some non-native commercial fishermen have already talked about protest fisheries, throwing their nets out during native-only fisheries.

“Those kinds of (events have) threatened the safety of fishermen in the past.”

Fontaine said natives don’t want to fight and don’t want to be provoked into a fight.

“We made it very clear that our preferred approach is to sit down and engage in meaningful negotiation,” he said.

Fraser River salmon stocks are vanishing, without any real explanation.

A study completed last year on the 2004 Fraser River fishery done by a respected former B.C. Supreme Court judge blamed warm water, mismanagement by the Department of Fisheries and illegal fishing.

Millions of salmon vanished that year.

Kelly said natives oppose the idea of a judicial inquiry, saying the money would be better spent on science and managing the stock.

But Prentice told the assembly its important “to get to the bottom of what is the problem on with the Fraser River fishery, before there’s no fish left.”