From The Chilliwack Progress
More than 40 commercial fishermen have been fined $200 each for illegally fishing to protest unequal rules governing aboriginal fisheries in 2001 and 2002, but some say they won't pay and would rather go to jail.
B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition spokesman Phil Eidsvik – one of the protesters who represented the group in court – said they will appeal the convictions and predicted some will defy the fines imposed Tuesday in B.C. Provincial Court.
"A number of them have come to me and said 'I'm not going to pay a fine because I'm the wrong race,'" Eidsvik said outside the Surrey courthouse.
"We have here a prosecution and enforcement policy based on race," he said. "By saying it's okay to charge one racial group and not charge another, the court becomes somewhat complicit in that."
The original protests were staged to shine a spotlight on what the fishermen viewed as lax policing of aboriginal salmon fisheries on the Fraser River.
Commercial fishermen were incensed they were largely sidelined in years of borderline sockeye returns, while native bands hauled in large catches of food fish.
They contend First Nations food fish catches were and continue to be routinely sold on the black market, while the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) turns a blind eye.
The Lower Mainland commercial fishermen convicted included Conservative MP John Cummins (Richmond-Delta East).
Also in the group are Japanese-Canadian fishermen like Len Koyanagi, who was born in an internment camp during the Second World War and counts this as the second time he's been wrongly punished by race-based federal policies.
"We're disappointed with the findings," said Cummins, who was fined $300 because it was his second offence.
"It's not the level of fine, it's the principle."
Cummins hoped the judge would grant absolute discharges – leaving fishermen with no record – and send a message to fishery managers that "you cannot treat one group of Canadians differently from another."
Provincial Court Judge James Wingham rejected discharges, noting the protest fisheries happened at the same time native food fisheries were in progress and "created a situation where there was potential for conflict."
The fishermen were given six months to pay and Wingham would not say how much jail time should apply for those who don't pay.
A series of legal challenges over the years by commercial fishermen have failed to force DFO to apply equal legal treatment to aboriginal fisheries.
The Supreme Court of Canada ruled in 2008 DFO could authorize aboriginal fisheries for sale and found different treatment before the law can be justified because First Nations are a disadvantaged group.
Other rulings since the protest fisheries took place have strengthened the constitutionally protected aboriginal right to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes ahead of all other users, subject only to conservat
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Topic: Protesting Fishermen Get Small Fines For Illegal Catches (Read 4029 times)