[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Tuesday, April 30, 1996
.1118 
[English]
The Chairman: Order.
I welcome you and am very pleased you are here. I speak for the committee when I say this.
I want to apologize for the size of the room. As you know, we found out late yesterday afternoon.... The request came to my office and the first concern was to receive you. On Parliament Hill changing a room is not easy. I hope it's not too bad for you and you feel comfortable.
I want to thank the committee members for agreeing to meet on short notice. Some of them had appointments. Our meeting was supposed to end at 11:15 a.m. They have cancelled them and they've made themselves available.
This committee has a commitment to learn more about aboriginal communities. We have undertaken a process to start that education. We saw this as an opportunity.
Mr. Wadhams, you have 45 minutes. If you wish to share your time with anyone, it will be up to you. But we plan on terminating at 12:05 p.m., in fairness to the members of the committee. The floor is yours.
Mr. Greg Wadhams (Individual Presentation): Some concerns have been brought up by individuals who came with us. Maybe we'll get their concerns done first, then we'll carry on as aboriginals.
The Chairman: First I'll ask you to identify the members who are with you. But if you share your time and none is left for you, at 12:05 p.m. we'll call the meeting. Fair enough?
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Mr. Wadhams: Okay.
Mr. Skip McCarthy (Member, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union): I'm Skip McCarthy, and I'm working with the West Coast Sustainability Association. I'm also a legal researcher for Tsleil Waututh, the Burrard Band, on their comprehensive claim. I'm assisting in the organization of this lobby.
Mr. David Hunt (Chairman, Kwakiutl District Council): I'm David Hunt. I'm the chairman of the Kwakiutl District Council.
Mr. Stephen Nyce (Individual Presentation): I'm Stephen Nyce. I'm from Gitwinshilku, Nass River.
Mr. Brian Lande (Member, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union): I'm Brian Lande. I'm from the Bella Coola Valley. I represent both aboriginal and non-aboriginal communities there at the round table on fishing matters.
Mr. Dan Edwards (Member, United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union): My name is Dan Edwards. I'm a director of the West Coast Sustainability Association, which is situated on the west coast of Vancouver Island in the Nuu-chah-nulth area. It's a native and non-native association. I represent the communities at the round table on fisheries matters.
The Chairman: Thank you.
Mr. Bill Irving (Mayor of Ucluelet): I'm Bill Irving, the Mayor of Ucluelet, and also a provincial appointee to the central region board, which is a native and non-native board for the bridge between the treaty negotiations and interim measures. Thanks very much.
The Chairman: Thank you. Mr. Wadhams, you are chairing the next forty minutes.
Mr. Wadhams: I would like Skip to start with these individuals.
The Chairman: You're the chair.
Mr. McCarthy: I'll ask some of the members of the organizations that represent both native and non-native communities to make some specific comments about the effects of the plan as it's influencing the communities in their region.
The reason we asked them to come along is because they all represent unusual but I think promising forms of organizations. These are organizations that have entered into voluntary association of native and non-native people, not compelled by government programs or corporate design but just because these are people who realize ultimately that there are things that need to be sorted out and we have to learn how to live and work together. So I'll ask them to make their presentations.
Mr. Lande: I'm Brian Lande. I'm from the Bella Coola Valley, as I said earlier.
Our concerns are that our fleet in Bella Coola, which is approximately half native and half non-native, is quite nomadic. This will certainly affect their incomes in the fact that they will be locked into one geographical area, and will certainly have a disastrous effect. In fact the native community is, I would say, more nomadic when it comes to their fishing patterns than my side of the community. Therefore, it is very important that we have that latitude; somehow or other we have to be able to maintain our present fishing patterns.
There certainly aren't the economics within the community and there is no way that either community can afford to buy second licences to travel to other areas. It's very difficult to raise money. We only have a credit union locally, and I think it's almost impossible for them to lend money to 90% of them.
Another factor is conservation. Because of the nature of the plan, it will put excessive catching power into the north coast.
Mr. Edwards: I represent a voluntary organization of native and non-native communities that have at the base of it a veto vote; we only work on common ground issues. One of the issues that has come up with this licensing scenario that was put in place is that it really hurts the communities out on the coast where we live.
I was told to tell the people out here in Ottawa that just as an example of the kind of bleeding away from community that's being developed right as we speak, there is the small village of Kyuquot in the northern part of the west coast of Vancouver Island that is already in very bad shape economically. What's happened is that of about fifteen licences that exist there now, six were sold last week because of the policies that were put in place. In the non-native community where I live, Ucluelet, we lost ten licences in one week. They're all bleeding into the urban areas. Specifically, we've been told by the fisheries department that this is what they expect to happen. No policies are in place to protect those coastal communities.
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Mr. Irving: I'm the final speaker for this section.
If I am allowed some liberty, could you pass this to Mr. Harper? I would like to get his autograph on the back of it.
Some of our folks have been down here for the full circle of meetings, and they would really appreciate an acknowledgement of their communities.
As a provincial representative on the central region board, I feel that this is an opportunity, and a formal opportunity, for native and non-native communities to address their concerns, both provincially and federally.
My concern specifically is that the central region board wrote to the round table process, to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, asking that they be able to be represented at the round table, reflective of seven communities, five native and two non-native, and a regional area, but they were bluntly denied access. As a mayor and a keeper of process that is fair and equitable, I find that reaction to be disrespectful, to say the least.
I strongly encourage this committee to voice that concern. We do not demand our own way; we just demand fair access to the process. That was denied categorically.
Thank you very much.
Mr. McCarthy: I will make some closing comments on behalf of the non-native representatives here.
This particular plan that DFO has authored for restructuring of the west coast fisheries is a radical change. It is not reflective of even the limited inputs they had through an industry-led consultation. In fact, of the 70 members in that round table, 30-plus were actually DFO employees. So there were only 40-some other people. There was systematic exclusion of aboriginal, environmental, and community reps.
The process itself is faulty. Also, if you will dig a bit deeper, you'll find that they did no environmental impact study or community impact study. They have no labour adjustment strategy. Finally, they haven't even published their 1994 fisheries statistics.
This is even hard to say with respect. If someone looked at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the quality of management these days, they would find it to be as poor as Indian Affairs was ten years ago. I urge that it be scrutinized very closely, especially with respect to aboriginal issues.
I'm sure these gentlemen will elaborate for you on how this piecemeal fisheries policy is going to force the government into a situation where it will create on the west coast a permanent social welfare state, as has been the evolution of the east coast fishing communities. I realize I'm speaking harshly here, but I used to be a DFO employee.
It was with great shock that I came back at one point and asked why we weren't doing more. I was told straight up by an ADM who now plays a principal role in west coast fisheries policy, ``It's because fisheries don't matter. They're too small a part of the GNP. Other trade interests with fishing nations are more important.'' And now look at what we have.
I'll close with those comments, but I urge you to recognize that, even though it's not exactly in your domain, this is something that has profound effects on aboriginal community and non-aboriginal community people on the west coast.
Thank you.
The Chairman: I'll make a short comment before you proceed. Any follow-up from this meeting will be undertaken individually by members. It's not an issue that the committee will address and make a recommendation to the House on.
I want to signal that the two members from the Bloc Québécois are here, the Reform Party will probably read the blues of the meeting, and the government members can make representations in caucus. We would be interested in recommendations, though. I know that you'll tell us what's going poorly, but make recommendations to us.
.1130
Mr. Wadhams: I have some concerns about what's happening to our village and other coastal villages along the B.C. coast. A lot of factors have to be brought up. A lot of aboriginals are in the commercial salmon fishery. A lot of aboriginals have invested a fair amount of dollars in the game. For our town and Alert Bay, for example, the Namgis Nation, there's a very good percentage of vessels there.
The bad thing about it is the small boat community. They never had any risk values or provision for small coastal communities. This report was thrown in for us, and it's just ``this is how it's going to be''. It doesn't matter if you're a small boat, you're going to get chewed up.
I'm looking at 80% of the vessels in our town, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal, being taken out of there. It's going to become a ghost town. And 50% of the 80% are aboriginal vessels.
To my mind, that has to do with land claims down the road. Part of our issue is the water around us. If they take 50% of our fleet away now and give us 5% back down the road, saying ``we did you a favour'', I don't think they're doing us a favour.
I don't know how we get this help, but I just wish this plan had gone.... We spent a lot of money, and I feel in the process our money should have gone back to local communities, because what the DFO has done to native people on the coast in the last so many years with the Davis report is virtually limited us. At one time I think it was 5% to 6%, whereas before that Davis plan we were over 50%. I think right now we're at about 14% to 18% native participation in the industry. With the Mifflin plan coming up now, that's going to knock us right out, probably down to 2% or 3% native participation.
We've been fishing this coast for a long time now. We have probably over a hundred years of involvement. I don't think the companies or the government could have got involved in the salmon fishery industry without the native people. Steadily government regulations and policies such as the Davis plan have eroded us.
Finally, the understanding I have is that DFO has a responsibility and obligation to consult with first nations before developing new plans that have such a big impact as this does on our reserve. And it has a really big impact on our reserve, because the plan goes to the multiple licence-holders, which are going to eat up the small individuals' licences, such as those on our reserve. I don't think that's right. We need some help and direction in that way.
I hope at the end we can get a report sent to us on how we go about this with the standing committee.
The Chairman: It won't be addressed by the standing committee unless a member moves a motion that it become a priority of the committee, although we have a long list now. I'm not saying it won't happen, but that's the way it works. If somebody wants something on the agenda, it's decided by the committee.
Mr. Wadhams: I'll just reiterate that there's no provision at all for first nation coastal communities.
.1135
The Chairman: Could you elaborate a bit on the consultation? What consultation did occur with the aboriginals? At what level? There must have been some.
Mr. Wadhams: There was a round table. Two from our area were put on the table, myself and another guy from down south, Brian Assu. We had all this stuff, it seemed to us, just pushed on us. In the last week our people took Brian Asue off all committees because they've made a new board of Kwakiutl people in the southern part of our Kwakiutl territory. It was a conflict for Brian to be there because they feel he was just a token Indian native on that board - and I agree with them - because they didn't listen to any of our concerns at all.
Mr. Hunt: I am the chairman of the Kwakiutl District Council, which is a political amalgamation of ten first nations from Comox to Port Hardy, all of whom are very dependent on the fishery.
As you know, the commissioners, since the very beginning when reserve commissioners were sent around British Columbia, set aside reserves very, very small by comparison with the reserves that were established in other parts of the country. The primary reason for that, according to the field notes of Mr. Green and Mr. Sproat and other members who came around, was that the coastal communities were not dependent on the land, they were dependent on the sea. Hence they made small reserves and gave us access to the sea, which was confirmed in the 1851 treaty by Sir James Douglas between Fort Rupert, of which I am a member, and the colonial government. That treaty says we can carry out our fishery as formerly.
Now, I know what ``formerly'' means, but the members of the government, and particularly Judge Saunderson in Campbell River, don't know what ``formerly'' means. To us it means we can carry out our fishery and do with the fish what we want, including selling it. That fishery was established as early as 1792 in trading with Captain Cook and other early Europeans.
The right of the aboriginal people has been recognized since 1763, as you know, through the Constitution of 1867, through the terms of union of British Columbia with Canada in 1871 under article 13, and as late as various amendments up to 1982 and section 35. Section 35 recognizes and affirms the right of the aboriginal people and their treaty rights.
The Kwakiutl people have fished for many years and in many instances established or helped to establish the larger companies - B.C. Packers, Nelson Brothers in the earlier days - and what not. It was the aboriginal people who knew where the fish were and how to catch them and who made profits for the government through its taxation system.
The MIfflin plan is designed to reduce the fleet by 50% through a buy-back program or a reclassification of licences. It also requires the stacking of licences. The only companies that can stack licences are the larger companies. Our members certainly do not have, now.... This plan has artificially inflated the value of the licences.
In 1994, I believe it was, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans also established a buy-back program, where J licence holders, of which my band is a member - it holds a J licence - were required to retire six gillnet licences, herring licences. In 1993 we bought two licences for $39,000 and one licence for $42,000. In 1994 the government came up with a program that would allow the bands to receive $81,000 to purchase another licence and retire it. That year the licences were artificially inflated to $120,000.
The Mifflin plan has done exactly the same thing to the salmon licences. Last year salmon licences were selling for $250,000. Now they're way up there.
.1140
Under the Mifflin plan, the $80 million that he proposes would retire approximately 31 seine licences this year. That's not a very large percentage of the fleet; it's less than 10%.
As the chairman has stated, don't just come here and complain, but come back with solutions.
There is a viable solution. There is a solution that was developed in 1991 by a fellow by the name of Cruickshank, who was commissioned by the department to do a report on the fleet reduction and other things. In his report Mr. Cruickshank made recommendations that were very similar to those in the Mifflin plan, but it was logical and thought out. It was to be implemented over a ten-year period.
This program that Mr. Mifflin is proposing is to be implemented within a four-year period and is accelerated....
When you have no money today and you can go to the government and they can give you $120,000 for an artificially inflated gillnet licence, you're going to sell. You're going to take that licence and sell it to the government, or to somebody else, and they're going to take it and stack it onto another vessel so they can fish in two areas.
For the most part, we agree with area fishing. We agree that there is a need for area fishing. We believe that every fisherman is an interceptor, whether they are fishing on the river or on the ocean. The only fish that are not intercepted are the ones that actually spawn. Everybody else is an interceptor.
The Mifflin plan would see the sea fishermen, especially the coastal fishermen, especially the coastal communities that are aboriginal, affected by it.
We have in our area ten established communities, all of which are dependent on the fishery, which in all of them for the most part is the largest employer of our people, not only on the grounds but also in the canneries and as tendermen and truck drivers and in other processes and freezing plants. This would reduce the entire fishery to next to zero in the Johnstone Strait area, where our people live.
So we believe that the Cruickshank report should be revisited and implemented and that the Mifflin plan should be put in abeyance at least until the Cruickshank report will have been fully reviewed.
The Kwakiutl people are territorial in nature. We have a hereditary system. Each chief has his own area to fish, each member has a place to fish, and they're all within our territory. That's why we believe in area fishing. The non-aboriginal fisherman should have to stack his licence, but our fishermen shouldn't.
Because our area, our traditional territory, is in two fisheries zones, we're going to have to go from Port Hardy to Comox, for instance, if the plan is implemented. We won't be able to fish in the southern part of our area, or the southern people won't be able to fish in the northern part of the area.
So we believe that the Cruickshank report should be revisited, that the Mifflin plan should be scrapped, and that Mr. Mifflin should revisit that and reconsider his decision to implement that plan so quickly and with so little forethought.
Thank you.
The Chairman: Before we go on, as the chair of the committee I will ensure that recommendation will be made to Mr. Mifflin and the department.
Mr. Hunt: Thank you.
The Chairman: A recommendation coming from you.
Mr. Nyce: I come from a small community with a population of about 180 people. A majority of the people who live in our community were fishermen at one time. We had about fifty fishermen. With this plan that's going to be implemented this year, we're down to five fishermen. So it's very scary for us, because we don't have an economic base to provide jobs for our people in the future.
We don't have any young fishermen coming up in our community. The majority of the fishermen on the Nass are over 40 years old, and we don't have anything to educate or train our young fishermen in the future. And that scares us. This is our livelihood. When we start thinking about things like this, we're saying, well, what's happening to us? Why isn't there anybody in that area representing our people in the Nass?
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Right now we are involved with salmon enhancement in the community of Gitwinksihlw. We're trying to upgrade one of our creeks. It was almost completely depleted of coho salmon by the logging industry. We have got this to a three-year stage. When we started working it was volunteer work. Three of us were doing it, three brothers. We started off doing that work with 50 fish. In the last three years it's gone up to 2,500 cohos.
Now, with the Nisga'a Tribal Council, we have tagged some of the cohos to see where they go when they leave the creek and to see what majority of them are caught outside the Nass. What we have found is that 60% of the coho we tag in Zaulzap Creek are caught by the Americans. We don't have a spokesman up in the Nass who will say this is wrong.
What we want to do is to try to implement some sort of job training for salmon enhancement for the fishermen who are going to be put out of the fishing industry, to protect the creeks that are up there now. We have only four major spawning creeks in the Nass that we're looking at now. The rest were destroyed by the logging industry.
Three of the creeks we are trying to protect are now going to be logged out. That scares our people. We're doing all this work so it will be better for our native fishermen and non-natives alike, and it's going to be destroyed.
The Nass River hasn't been fished in thirty years. In the last two years it has been open to our own people. With this plan that's coming up now we're starting to worry about it, because we're going to be looking at the whole southern fleet and the fleet from the west coast coming into the Nass area. It's not a very big area. It's a small area of only three or four major channels you can fish in.
Area licensing scares our people, because most of our young fishermen have converted herring skiffs into gillnetters. We don't want to travel up and down the coast in those little boats. I've done it before and I know what it's like. It's not a very good feeling.
So our main concern is what the group here can do to help us or to assure us something will be done in this area.
We are fighting right now with the sport fishermen in the Nass. People within our own tribal group have brought in this sport fishing industry. We don't want to fight with the fishermen who have joined us because of a lack of jobs up there. They are trained to fish in that area, so they know the area. When they get into sport fishing, it will be good for them but it won't be good for the environment. Once you start those kinds of things, it's hard to stop.
I agree with previous speakers here that no one came to our community or the Nass area to talk to us about these plans that are happening now. It's mostly stressed towards the coastal communities. I live inland. I don't live along the coast. We have no representation on the inland. That's people from the Hazelton area, Kitwanga area, Terrace area. We want to know if when they have these committees one of our people from that area could be put on to speak for our people.
.1150
We ourselves don't like the idea of stacking licences. We're concerned about the AI licence that will be bought up by the companies, which is the same thing that happened with the herring licences, where the non-natives put a native on the boat to use them. We don't want that. If that's going to be implemented, then we want the native organizations to have first choice at buying back those AI licences to sell to the native fishermen who want to get back into the fishing industry.
We are declining already. If we purchase these licences, we want to be able to use them to teach our younger people how to fish.
I've been fishing since I was about 16 years old. With what's happening now, I might have to give up that livelihood because of the expense of our licences. I can't afford to pay $80,000 for a licence.
We have about a 64% unemployment rate in our community, so there's no way the five fishermen in our community are going to be able to get an $80,000 licence to fish, whether it's in the central or the southern area. Nowadays, you need all three licences if you're going to make any headway. The short term in the fishing industry is a weekly thing, maybe one day out of the week, so we have to go up and down the coast.
I'd like to hear back from the organization later on this to see how they can help us to retrain our people in our community. That is our main concern.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you.
If you agree, I will open up to questions and give you closing remarks.
Mr. Wadhams: Okay.
The Chairman: Dr. Patry.
Mr. Patry (Pierrefonds - Dollard): You're now part of the coalition demanding that Mifflin drop the FO fleet plan. As I read your statement, you say that this implemented plan will have a negative impact on conservation, enhancement, protection, and rebuilding of salmon stock and other fishery resources. The way we understand it, the way it was presented to us as members of Parliament, it shows that if they want to diminish the fleet by 50%, this is really to protect the salmon. According to your statement, it will have a negative impact on conservation. Would you extrapolate, talk a little bit about this, please?
Mr. Wadhams: Some of the Mifflin plan we're not totally against. There's the odd good thing in there, such as conservation and reducing the fleet. But there are other ways of going about reducing the fleet. One of the ways was a voluntary buy-back and a tax incentive for the people who were going to retire.
When the round table first started, there was a brotherhood proposal that was sort of similar to the Mifflin plan. In that proposal we asked the government to buy back from the non-natives who wanted to get out of the industry, to make a balance for first nation participation in the industry. By saying that, we wanted them to buy back from the people getting out and, if we had to double up on our licences in order to fish in other areas, return the licences to us so we could stay in the industry.
The way the Mifflin plan is, we in our communities have no involvement at all in the industry.
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[Translation]
Mr. Bachand (Saint-Jean): Mr. Patry, you asked a question that I wanted to ask.
Mr. Patry: I'm sorry about that.
Mr. Bachand: I would have a question on aboriginal negotiations, among others; if I understood correctly, you belong to the Nisga'a Nation. We know that the Nisga'a have just concluded an interesting agreement that must surely contain provisions on fisheries.
I will broaden the scope of my question a little. Could this not be an important subject of discussion for all of the aboriginal groups who will be negotiating through the British Colombia Treaties Commission? Several aboriginal nations have reached different points in the six steps.
Could discussions not be held to settle the substantial matter of fisheries? That topic also encompasses self-government negotiations and land claims, topics that are presently being negotiated in British Columbia.
Is Mr. Mifflin, and his policy, just ignoring the negotiations ongoing around the British Colombia Treaty? Is he taking those negotiations into account in any way at all?
[English]
The Chairman: I'll ask for a brief answer to a good question.
Mr. Hunt: The Mifflin plan circumvents the treaty process. It is implementing a program that will take the fishery off the table. I can't speak for the Nisga'a because I'm not that familiar with their treaty. I've only read the summary.
Part of the question Mr. Patry asked is does it help conservation. No. Why? Because it doesn't reduce the ability of the fleet to catch the fish. It reduces the ability of participation in the fishery, but the capacity remains the same.
Whether or not this will be left on the treaty tables.... We're under the B.C. Treaty Commission process right now. We are at stage two. So as we move into stage three, we will be putting up what we want to discuss. Fisheries is one of the issues we will be discussing. But if there is nothing left to discuss about the plan, the short answer is no, this does not.... There will be nothing left to negotiate.
The Chairman: We have seven minutes. We have time for two questions and two answers. The members are welcome to answer questions after we adjourn the meeting.
Mr. Finlay (Oxford): I'm trying very hard to understand this. If you say that we reduce the fleet by half, but we don't reduce the power to catch fish, then what you're saying, I think, is that the technology on the present boats, those that will get the extra licences, that will stack the licences - that is, bigger boats, non-aboriginal boats perhaps, boats centred in Vancouver, Nelson Island, wherever - can catch far more fish than they're presently catching.
Mr. Hunt: Yes.
Mr. Finlay: The stacking of licences and the purchase of licences is a free enterprise situation. We're trying to control something by reducing participation, but the rich can participate more easily than the less advantaged.
Mr. Hunt: Yes, exactly.
Mr. Finlay: Why do we have stacking of licences at all? If we're going to reduce the fleet, why don't we say there are going to be only 500 licences and say you had 30 before so you can have 15, they had 40 so they can have 20. Why do we get into this money game?
Mr. Wadhams: That's one of the things we tried to address at the round table. The majority at the round table didn't agree to the stacking at all. It was just a few individuals on there who had multiple licences, such as the companies like B.C. Packers, which have licences already put away. They have their vessels out in fish farms and are using those vessels. They're going to get money for that piece of paper they have in their office. That to me is wrong. A voluntary buy back...it should have been a voluntary thing instead of the rich get richer, whereas a small community like ours, solely dependent on our salmon industry, 100% dependent on it, is going to lose.
The whole idea of this report was too fast. It was pushed on us and we didn't....
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The Chairman: That was a good question and it allows members now to pursue it. There will be that opportunity.
Mr. Harper.
Mr. Harper (Churchill): I have a lot of questions.
The Chairman: We don't have a lot of minutes.
Mr. Harper: That seems to be the situation all the time.
The Chairman: But you're welcome to stay afterward to get the information you need.
Mr. Harper: You mentioned protecting the territory and exercising that right as an inherent right that has gone on for years. I know that these rights have been recognized since the time of contact and recognized through all these years within the Canadian Constitution. There is also in B.C. the Sparrow case in terms of recognizing the right to fish domestically. But I think the whole issue of managing and commercial fishing was never really addressed.
Has there been any process in that regard in trying to elevate it to the level at which these rights would be recognized and pursued, which might benefit the aboriginal fishermen in the coastal and inland fisheries?
Mr. Hunt: The Sparrow decision determined that the aboriginal fishery was the first priority after conservation.
I haven't fully read the most recent decision of the Supreme Court, but it dealt with the river fishery and the sale of in-river fisheries to the commercial industry. I understand that the court said that it was subject to regulation, which until now it was not. It was restricted only in its openings, but now it's subject to other regulations as well. I think it was Sparrow that determined that the size of the net could not be regulated by the Department of Fisheries. I suppose that's been overturned.
No progress has been made in the recognition of the right of the aboriginal people to sell fish, although several appeals are currently before the Supreme Court.
Mr. Wadhams: I would like to wind this up by thanking you for listening to our concerns.
Keep in mind that we feel it is our hereditary right to make a living economically as well as socially in our area. We don't feel that DFO or the government has a right to push us out of our own area, such as the small boat community we come from.
I also say that they have a fiduciary right to consult with us before they make such big-impact matters in our traditional areas. Hopefully, native people will be protected in their traditional areas.
I don't know if I brought up at the start that all natives should be able to roam the coast freely, because we've always been free to roam all our lives within the industries, especially when DFO practises and preaches that they want more participation by native people within the industry.
The Chairman: Thank you very much. I'm very pleased that you asked to meet with us. We have a special interest in aboriginal communities and the effects of legislation. I assure you that I will pursue this with ministers and with departments in order to be more educated on it. If anything, you've triggered our interest. I know of the commitment of all members, and I know that your visit will bear fruit.
This meeting stands adjourned.