Cummins says treaties will end commercial catch
Marisa Babic
Surrey Now
Friday, November 30, 2007
John Cummins says salmon allocations in the Tsawwassen treaty, if applied to all aboriginal groups with claims to the Fraser River, would result in a harvest greater than the entire sockeye run in 91 of the last 113 years.
"There would be no fish left for the public recreational and commercial fisheries," the Conservative MP said this week.
Cummins has written a 32-page analysis of what he terms the Tsawwassen benchmark for fish allocations.
"It became crystal clear as I studied the Tsawwassen treaty and its application to the salmon runs over the last century that, with the stroke of a pen, our governments are ending the common recreational and commercial fishery that has always been open to every citizen of British Columbia and indeed every citizen of Canada."
The government maintains the total allowable catch for natives won't exceed 33 per cent of the overall catch.
Earlier this year, Cummins' Conservative colleague, Indian Affairs Minister Jim Prentice, said the cumulative effect of treaty allocations was properly examined by the Pearse/McRae report in 2004. "The result of settling all treaties would result in approximately 33 per cent of the sockeye harvest being provided to First Nations for both food, social and ceremonial and commercial," the minister said at the time.
Under the treaty, the Tsawwassen First Nation has been given 0.78 per cent of the total allowable catch for sockeye, the most coveted and economically lucrative species of salmon on the Fraser.
If that benchmark were applied up and down the river to various bands, Cummins said, it would result in the equivalent of 177 per cent of the catch going to natives.
This is in addition to the regular commercial fishery, in which about 35 per cent of natives hold licences and have for several decades, Cummins added.
In his report, the veteran MP also says the separate native harvest agreements will advance the interests of large fishing corporations such as the Jimmy Pattison-owned Canadian Fishing Company.
According to Cummins, Pattison's staff are already negotiating with Fraser River bands to gain access to those native commercial allocations. The corporations, which could be handed over licences from the Tsawwassen band and possibly other aboriginal groups, would pay a royalty to the bands in order to harvest those special allocations.
The report can be found on Cummins' website at
www.johncummins.ca.
© Surrey Now 2007
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