[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]
Thursday, May 30, 1996
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[English]
The Chairman: I call the meeting to order. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
We welcome Mr. John Fraser, Speaker Fraser as he's know to the class of 1988. He was the first elected speaker in the history of our Parliament and was also a member of this particular committee, the fisheries committee, and also a minister of fisheries. We have him in today to discuss the Pacific Salmon Treaty with the Americans and the effect of the Mifflin plan, if he has any opinions on that.
As you're well aware, Mr. Fraser, we will have some time for your opening remarks and then we'll open the meeting for questions.
The member from the official opposition is not here today. He claims he's giving his time to the Reform Party. I don't think Mr. Cummins will take advantage of that statement. He'll share his time with the members of the government and we'll have a good discussion on what's going on in the very volatile Pacific fishery situation.
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Welcome, and we welcome your remarks.
Hon. John A. Fraser (Ambassador for the Environment, Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate your kind remarks about my former life. It's true that I was the first Speaker of the House of Commons to be elected by secret ballot. Following that, one might be able to forgive the members for what they did, but they went and did it again in 1988, and after that there were no excuses.
Colleagues, let me start at the beginning. First of all, Mr. Chairman, I should ask how much time we have.
The Chairman: We have an hour or an hour and a half.
Mr. Cummins (Delta): That's for me, is it?
The Chairman: That's a start.
Mr. Fraser: To begin with, I was appointed ambassador for the environment for Canada in February 1994, when I commenced my duties. The position was created because of the UNCED conference at Rio. The then government believed that it was important to appoint a position and a person to maintain the focus on what had happened at Rio, on our commitments and on what we were doing to carry them out - not just Canada's commitments, but also everybody else's commitments.
That was the purpose of the post. It operates out of the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. It is a prime ministerial appointment, and while I have as immediate staff a secretary in Vancouver and an office there, and a secretary here and a senior adviser from the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, my resources are available not just from Foreign Affairs and its environmental division but also from other departments, specifically the Department of the Environment, and also other departments as I need the information. This includes Fisheries and Oceans, of course, but it doesn't stop there.
I want to tell the committee that I have received really remarkable cooperation from all of these departments. I think the position in itself is probably moving us, albeit not as rapidly as we would like, toward a better implementation of our commitments and a better understanding of the whole concept of sustainable development.
The mandate of this position was originally quite extensive and all of it legitimate enough, but in explaining several closely typed pages, I can put it down to four things. One is to ensure that Canada does everything we said we would do at Rio. Two is that we work to make sure that everybody else does what they said they would do at Rio. Three is to work with others to accomplish what we didn't succeed in accomplishing at Rio, and as we identify new problems, to work with others to resolve them. Four is a general liaison capacity with provincial governments, with environmental non-governmental organizations, and also with non-governmental organizations in trade and industry, science and academia, and the public generally.
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After the difficulties in 1994 with the missing sockeye salmon, I was asked by then Minister Tobin, who was fisheries minister, if I would chair an independent panel looking into what had happened and make recommendations to the government, which we did. I'm happy to report to the committee that we submitted our report, completed on time and under budget.
I'm sure the committee has a copy of that report. I'm not going to go into that, except that I may make some observations that come from the work that was done with that public independent committee a while ago.
More recently I was asked by Minister Axworthy and Minister Mifflin if I would take on the task of trying to bring Canada and the United States back into a working arrangement with respect to the Pacific Salmon Treaty, which for the last two years has not been operational - the treaty is still in existence, which is very important, it's not been terminated - and with that intent I have been doing certain things, which I'm going to talk about.
There is some background that's important to this. The salmon fishery is made up of five traditional species of salmon - chinook, coho, sockeye, chum, and pink. A few years ago the scientists decided that the steelhead is also a salmon, so we are speaking of six species, but the five that I first enumerated are administered by the federal government and for the most part steelhead is administered by the provincial government by arrangements. That has nothing to do with any constitutional abandonment. It's by arrangement.
I will go back to 1984-85, when I was the Minister of Fisheries. The 1995 Canada-United States Pacific Salmon Treaty was endorsed by both Canada and the United States and signed. Prior to that, negotiations had gone on between our two countries for at least 15 years to try to find some way by which we could work collaboratively to obtain an overall approach to conservation and to the principle of equity, which, put simply, means that each country ought to have an equitable return on the fish that are spawned and produced in the rivers of that country, keeping in mind that both Canadian fishers and American fishers intercept salmon returning to the streams of the other country.
Those negotiations had come to a stop in the early 1980s and late 1970s. It might be of interest to colleagues to know that about 1982 or 1983 three private members of the House of Commons - myself, John Reid of the Liberal Party, and Jim Fulton of the New Democratic Party - went to Washington on our own but with the full knowledge of the then government and met with some American senators, including Senator Stevens from Alaska, Murkowski from Alaska, Slade Gorton from Washington, and there may have been some others.
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That meeting, while an informal meeting, was to discuss how those American senators could help on their side to bring these negotiations back into play. It's appropriate to remark, despite the differences that have developed under the treaty between our two countries, that our request of them was met. The consequence was that a Mr. Derwinski was appointed by the then American administration and Canada appointed a very distinguished former public servant and minister to try to put the negotiations on track. Mr. Mitchell Sharp was our negotiator.
The consequence of that was that by the time I became minister both sides said we think we have an agreement, let's decide whether we're going to agree to it or not. At that time it was my responsibility as Minister of Fisheries to recommend for the acceptance of the treaty as negotiated, to reject it, or to ask that it be put back for further negotiation. I did not do that. I recommended we accept it. I did not do that whimsically. There were intense discussions over a protracted period.
There were two elements of that treaty which in hindsight perhaps we'd all be better off had they been included in it or put in it in a different way. The first is that there was no dispute settling mechanism in the treaty. The second was that in order for the treaty to work, it required both countries, through various committees, to negotiate with each other each year to set quotas and management schemes for the different species and to consider the two issues of conservation and equity. That means under the treaty there was a constant year-to-year mechanism to make it work.
I want to point out that the treaty did not set up a single office to administer all of the fishery from the American south through British Columbia to Alaska. What it required was negotiations and agreements. Then each country would conform to those agreements, but they would be administered in their own jurisdictions.
At that time the way the treaty was implemented in the United States, and a condition of its implementation, was that enabling legislation was passed through Congress which required that Alaska, Washington, Oregon, and the American native tribes must reach a consensus in the arrangements. In effect, that gave a veto to each of those groups.
In hindsight, we could go back and say maybe that should never have happened and maybe we should have had a dispute settling mechanism. At the time, though, the reality is we probably would not have got the treaty at all if we had insisted on this.
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I bring this to the attention of the committee because both of those factors are of importance today.
While there is no dispute settling mechanism in the treaty, there is a termination clause, where either country can, after an appropriate period of notice, withdraw completely from the treaty. This has not happened and I sincerely hope it does not happen. It is not the Canadian position to terminate the treaty.
It is common to say today, especially if you're listening to people in British Columbia or some people in Washington and Oregon, that the treaty has ``broken down'' because of intransigence on the part of the Alaskans. There is no doubt there is disagreement, certainly between Canada and Alaska, especially on equity. But it is not altogether accurate to say this is the only problem with the treaty. There are other problems.
The problem Canada has focused on primarily has been the equity issue. Canada has argued that if equity breaks down there is no incentive on the part of Canada to work to maintain and enhance its stocks, take care of the habitat, plus do the monitoring, enforcement and scientific work necessary to maintain and to enhance the stocks in general.
When we consider what equity means in terms of the practical factors out in the water, I don't want to simplify this too much, but let me put it this way. Most of the salmon that come out of British Columbia, Washington and Oregon waters go into the Pacific and spend part of their lives there before they return to spawn in Alaskan waters.
When those salmon start to move south and come into the British Columbia, Washington and Oregon streams, they are intercepted by fishers fishing in southeastern Alaska especially. Those fishers are not all Alaskan. Approximately 800 vessels go up to Alaska to fish those stocks. They are mostly from Washington and perhaps some are from Oregon.
When the fish come down, the sockeye, which is the most valuable commercial species, comes down south either through the Johnstone Strait or down the west side of Vancouver Island and through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Traditionally it is split, some sockeye going each way, although in 1994 most of the sockeye came through Johnstone Strait. In any event, when they get down to the south, those stocks dip down below the Canada-U.S. border, where of course traditionally they have been intercepted by southern, American fishers.
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The point is that American fishers sit in a position of potentially very powerful interception, both in the southeastern Alaskan waters and in the waters south of our border between Washington and British Columbia. This is because those sockeye that go south come back up into the north, come back across the border again and go into the mouth of the Fraser and into the Fraser system.
My point is the interceptions we're talking about from a Canadian position are predominantly American interceptions of fish that spawn in Canadian waters.
At the same time, the chinook and coho returning to Washington and Oregon waters, the Columbia system and the other rivers, come down through Canadian waters and especially down through the outside of Vancouver Island, which is the west side of Vancouver Island through the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Traditionally at this point they are intercepted by Canadian fishers.
When the whole question of equity was being discussed in the negotiations, the objective of the exercise from the Canadian point of view was that, for all species, both countries be in balance in the interceptions of each other's fish.
What has happened is with diminishing stocks of coho and chinook going into Puget Sound and the American south, Canadian interceptions have dropped significantly. On the other hand, American interceptions, especially in Alaska, have gone up. The Canadian figure is that over the past number of years American interceptions of Canadian-bound fish have increased 50%. Canadian interceptions of U.S.-bound fish have decreased 25%.
The matter is complicated by a deep division in the views of Canada and the United States on how to measure equity. At the time the treaty was drafted, a special memorandum of understanding was attached to the treaty and forms part of it. The memorandum of understanding had been specifically designed to try to alleviate this problem and to give guidance to the determination of what equity means.
To give you some insight into this, I want to quote from an American paper. It is a recent paper by two men named Shelton and Koenings. The title of the paper is Marine Factors in the Production of Salmon: Their Significance to the Pacific Salmon Treaty. It is not necessarily all relevant to what we are talking about here, but I think part of it very succinctly and very objectively sets out the two views. Remember this is written by Americans. I am quoting from it:
- Canada has consistently asserted that a nation has the right to harvest salmon spawned in its
rivers and other nations do not. In the Canadian view, equity status should be determined by the
relative gross values of intercepted salmon, meaning salmon caught in one nation's fisheries
that spawned in the other nation's waters. That is, the gross value of salmon intercepted by the
nations' fisheries should be compared, equity being achieved only when the value of the
respective interceptions is equal.
Now I'm going to give you what at least is a fairly concise statement of the American position. I quote:
- An alternative, and in our view, more defensible approach holds that host nations(i.e., countries that support the growth of salmon spawned in another country) are not simply
interceptors of another nation's salmon. Rather, each country in whose waters salmon live and
grow contributes essentially to the well-being of those stocks. As Yanagida (1987) observed,
host country contributions may be greater than those of the nation with jurisdiction over the
spawning grounds. The Canadian position disregards the role of U.S. coastal and Exclusive
Economic Zone (EEZ) waters in the marine phases of salmon life history.
This reached a point of frustration and was manifested by many indications of anger on the part of Canadians, including in 1994 the imposition of transit fees on American vessels moving from the American south up to Alaska to go fishing and also, for a short period of time, the placing of most of the Canadian fishing fleet in the Strait of Juan de Fuca to intercept not only principally sockeyes that would have gone south of the border before going into the Fraser... I don't want to get into arguments, but the probability was that they were also intercepting coho and chinook going to American waters.
That concentration of the fleet didn't last very long, because the sockeye didn't come down the west side of Vancouver Island. They came through Johnstone Strait and the fleet moved. But it was argued by Canada that the transit fees and the concentration of the fleet would at least get the Americans' attention.
Anyway, the consequence of all of that was that discussions began at the highest level between Canada and the United States. A mediator was agreed upon between the two countries, a man named Peeby from New Zealand. He worked with a team from both sides. Our negotiator wasMr. Yves Fortier and the American negotiator was Mr. Pipkin. Unfortunately, this did not result in agreement.
Also, I have to advise the committee that in the agreement between Canada and the United States that established the mediation, confidentiality of the mediation was to be respected by both countries. So at least officially the mediation has never been made public. In any event, it failed, and then Canada, through the aegis of Minister Axworthy, the Department of Foreign Affairs, asked, through diplomatic channels, directly to Secretary of State Warren Christopher, if the United States would accept binding arbitration.
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Now, I'm not saying anything I've not said in front of American audiences, both privately and publicly. The fact is that if one reviews international relations over a lot of years, it isn't very often that countries are prepared to accept binding arbitration unless they believe they have a fairly strong case on the issue to be determined. The official American answer came a week or so ago fromMr. Christopher, saying that they were not prepared to accept binding arbitration.
Some weeks ago, recognizing that even though we had not received that communication officially it was probably going to be the result, I was asked to go to Washington to see what we could do to resolve this problem. I met with Under Secretary Tim Wirth and Secretary Claussen. That meeting began a series of meetings and discussions between me and both of them. Ms Claussen has the immediate handling of the dossier.
What I have been proposing on behalf of Canada is that Canada and the United States agree to establish some kind of independent third-party panel to consider the treaty and where the problems are, to make findings and recommendations that would be reported to the two governments, and that those recommendations would at the same time be made public. The proceedings of the panel would be both private and public, but would be open to interested parties coming before the panel. Basically the process would be, to use international diplomatic language, transparent. It would not be binding. I think we are fairly close to achieving that first step in the process.
The second step is to set the terms of reference of any such independent panel and also the format of the panel, meaning who is going to be on it. That is not as easy as it sounds. The terms of reference must be broad enough to include those issues that both sides wish to discuss. They must be broad enough to enable the panel to look at the treaty itself and what was written into the treaty; to consider how the treaty has worked, and where it hasn't, to respond to why; and as a consequence of those deliberations, to make recommendations.
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With respect to the make-up of the treaty, the format of the treaty, the personnel that would be in it, the discussions have come close to an agreement in principle that both sides would appoint people to the panel. Canada would be prepared to accept some appointees from other than just Canada or the United States. But there is still some very careful work to be done on both the terms of reference and the appointments of the panel.
I think we have a realistic appreciation that such a panel would not be able to bring in recommendations that would assist this year's fishing season. But there would have to be, at some point, a cut-off to its deliberations and a date for it to report. Canada has suggested February 1997, or earlier if it could be done.
We would expect that if this can be achieved and if its deliberations are for the most part public and its recommendations are public, and the public has entrée to the panel - meaning that interested groups can appear in front of it - there is at least a reasonable probability that the differences that exist will be much better understood and that hopefully recommendations will result that both sides can accept.
There are some other general things we should keep in mind. Even in my home province of British Columbia, because the fishery is complex and involves five traditional species, and now six with the steelhead, a lot of people don't fully understand how complicated the management of this fishery can be.
Except for the steelhead, the other five species of Pacific salmon die after they have spawned, unlike Atlantic salmon. The steelhead, more like the Atlantic salmon, often survive spawning and go back into the ocean for another period of ocean life and then come back to spawn again.
For a number of years there have been very serious difficulties because in the south generally, the ocean survival rate of smolts... When the salmon eggs hatch they are fry and fingerlings, and then as they get to the mouths of the rivers and go into the ocean they're called smolts. They may be anywhere from five to seven or eight inches long, or even longer perhaps. Some stay in the rivers for a year or two before they come out, and some go out within a matter of months, depending on the species. We won't get into all of that, but when I talk about smolts I'm talking about the little salmon that have hatched, have come down the river and are now going into the ocean.
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The water conditions for ocean survival are extremely important. In the south - and the scientists would say I'm oversimplifying this, but I hope I'm not being incorrect - the temperatures and other things in the southern waters have been such that ocean survival has been seriously diminished. The warmer water also has brought mackerel, which is a predator fish, into the waters in which these smolts spend part of their time before moving north. The predation on these smolts has been savage. Some of our scientists say that with, for instance, chinook from some of the west coast Vancouver Island streams, predation may well have been as high as 90% of the smolt production out of the rivers.
I want the committee to understand the division on the equity issue. We need to understand it has been the Canadian position that if equity is not resolved, there is no incentive on the part of the home country to look after its stocks. Having said that, I don't want anybody to think Canada suggests we should suddenly stop enhancement and maintenance of our stocks. There is, of course, another very serious issue, and that is the whole question of conservation.
In the north the waters have been more productive, so the problem of ocean survival has not been as great. But with chinook, our stocks, and the chinook stocks in the American south, are in very serious jeopardy indeed. And here there is a very serious argument between not just Washington and Oregon but also Canada and Alaska about how many of the chinook in southeastern Alaska the Alaskans should take, given the fact that we have such very difficult problems with the return of chinook in a number of places.
Last year, in the absence of any agreement, the native tribes took an action in the United States courts - it was joined by Canada, but the initiative came from the native tribes - asserting that Alaska was not upholding the principles of the treaty. The consequence of that was that the court ordered Alaska to stop fishing. Where that lawsuit is at the moment in terms of repetition of that I can't tell you today, but last year Canada cut its directed chinook fishery by 50%, and this year there will be no directed commercial fishery on Canadian chinook. In addition to that, northern chinook fisheries - the Queen Charlotte Islands and down the west side of Vancouver Island - for sports fishermen have been stopped completely. In effect, except for the Gulf of Georgia and a few other places, Canada has practically stopped its chinook fishery.
That is a conservation problem, and a very serious one. So I want to emphasize that we do not take the position that you can de-link the equity issue from the conservation issue.
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It may be of interest to the committee to know that sockeye, which is the most profitable commercial species, has some years in which there is abundance and other years in which the runs are very diminished. That has been a natural phenomenon that has gone on as long as we have been measuring the return of sockeye. This year in the Fraser River would be a low year for sockeye returns, but it's especially low because of water conditions and other things. At the moment, anyway, there will be no commercial fishery of sockeye returning to the Fraser.
I just want to point out what this creates in terms of difficulty. Remember that this much-reduced run of sockeye is nonetheless going to go down below the American border before it comes back up and goes into the mouth of the Fraser. Without an agreement, without any arrangements with our American friends, they could take them all if they were disposed to. I don't think they're going to do that; all I'm saying is that this is why we need arrangements with the Americans on the management of this resource.
Mr. Chairman, I think I might stop there. I would be very pleased to accept questions. I noticed that more colleagues have come to our meeting, and two I know are more than just passing knowledgeable about the fishery. Mr. Herb Dhaliwal and Dr. Ted McWhinney, both of whom are long-time friends and associates of mine, are both very knowledgeable.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman: Thank you, Mr. Fraser.
I was just wondering about the mackerel. Are they a permanent predator now? Have they gone back from whence they came?
Mr. Fraser: The best answer I can give is that they come with the warm water. It is expected that as that warming situation diminishes they will go away. They are a phenomenon of the warm water.
The Chairman: In terms of the production levels of the Columbia versus ours versus Alaska, what is the -
Mr. Fraser: I don't have all of the figures.
First of all, there is a figure that I think we should keep in mind. Total Alaskan salmon production and escapement last year was over 200 million fish. Canada's was about 20 million and Washington and Oregon were less than that. The American fishery is enormous, and much of it, while it concerns us as citizens of the globe, is not the problem we're looking at. It's the interceptions in southeastern Alaska that are causing the major concern. Generally speaking, Alaskan waters have been very productive for some years now.
With respect to the Columbia River, there is an ongoing debate among our American friends. Enormous sums of money are being spent on trying to enhance and maintain salmon stocks, as well as steelhead and coho and chinook, not just in the Columbia but in other rivers. Some people are very pessimistic, but certainly ocean conditions have been such that the expected returns from the very large amounts of money spent on enhancement and the work done haven't materialized.
That doesn't mean that if ocean conditions improve they may not materialize, but speaking generally of the Columbia, which was, I suppose, the greatest salmon river in the world, for better or for worse Americans decided that industrialization, power generation, was more important than fish. Those decisions were made decades ago. I doubt, if one had the same decisions to make today, they would all be made in the same way. In any event, the Columbia is no longer the great river it once was.
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One of the things Alaska says to its southern fellow Americans is ``You did this and you took the financial benefits, the economic benefits of industrialization of the Columbia, so why are you complaining about what we do up here in Alaskan waters?'' That's a debate between Americans.
With respect to the Fraser system, which is now the greatest system in North America, we didn't dam it. I think it's fair to comment on this. When I was a young man there were very extensive plans to put a dam at Moran above Lillooet on the Fraser River. That didn't happen, principally because constitutionally the federal government was in control of the fishery and would have resisted any such dam most vigorously, and would have been supported by many British Columbians.
So the Fraser was never dammed, and for power production the policy-makers in the then provincial government moved to the Peace River and the upper Columbia, because the Columbia was already dammed. But it is also important, when we're speaking with our American friends, to remind them that we did not do with the Fraser what their fellow Americans did with the Columbia.
The Chairman: We'll go to Mr. Cummins.
Mr. Cummins: It's certainly a pleasure for me to be here this morning and to hear Mr. Fraser's comments on the west coast fisheries. Mr. Fraser is very highly regarded in our province for his knowledge on the fishery. We British Columbians take quite a delight in his accomplishments over the years. So I really am thrilled to be here this morning.
I'd like to address a number of issues. I guess I'll try to link it somewhat, to begin with, to the treaty issues.
Back in 1994, when negotiations broke down on the salmon treaty in British Columbia, Canada walked away from the negotiating table and imposed, as Ambassador Fraser suggested, some transit fees on Americans. They also initiated an aggressive fishing strategy, a strategy that, in the terms of the report Mr. Fraser wrote the following winter, brought the fishery twelve hours from disaster. It was an active policy of the government that allowed for that close call.
The interesting thing and what I'd like to pursue for a few minutes are some of the recommendations that came out of that report. The document I'm referring to was prepared for the federal government. It's an analysis by a man by the name of Blewett, who was reviewing the government response to the recommendations contained in the Fraser report, and the Fraser report contained some 35 recommendations on a variety of issues.
The first issue the report addressed was one of risk aversion management. In summary, the first five recommendations dealt with that issue of risk aversion management. The Blewett report says:
- ...the department still lacks an explicit risk averse management plan and fishing plans that spell
out what contingent actions it would anticipate taking in the event of unplanned oceanic or
environmental conditions.
My question is, Mr. Fraser, do you still believe this issue of risk aversion management is important, and if so, are you somewhat disappointed by the lack of response from the department, as indicated by Mr. Blewett in the department's own report?
Mr. Fraser: First of all, Mr. Cummins, on risk aversion, that was recommendation one that came out of the independent public Fraser River review panel. I'll read it:
- We recommend that DFO retain and exercise its constitutional conservation responsibilities
and not in any way abrogate its stewardship of resources under federal jurisdiction.
Conservation must be the primary objective of both fisheries managers and all others
participating in the fishery. The conservation ethic must prevail throughout and be adhered to
by all.
- We recommend that DFO and PSC adopt a risk aversion management strategy because of the
great uncertainty in stock estimates, in-season catch estimates and environmental problems.
Conservation goals must be achieved before any other priorities are addressed.
Mr. Blewett and his committee were retained to do an assessment of the degree and the effectiveness with which DFO was carrying out not just this recommendation but also the35 recommendations put to them by the independent board.
I am not sitting in Mr. Blewett's seat, and perhaps Mr. Blewett should speak for himself, but I think I can say this in answer to the issue you've raised, Mr. Cummins. There has always been an argument in British Columbia between those who believed the harvest plans ran us too close to the dividing line between what you have to get back on the spawning grounds to ensure future salmon and salmon production and the amount of harvest you want to obtain to get the highest economic return on the resource. There have been bitter arguments over the years that this line was constantly pushed too close to the margin.
Whether or not that is absolutely so is for others to debate in another place, but we on the committee most certainly believe the problem with the so-called missing sockeye in 1994 was because risk aversion was not being given the amount of attention it needed to be given.
Mr. Cummins is right; we pointed out that if at one point in the late summer there had been one more 12-hour fishery, we would have wiped out the Adams River run. As it was, it was the lowest return since the 1930s.
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Now some people privately have said that was too strong an indictment. To those who say that - they don't say it publicly - I say, if that's so, why have we had no disagreement with our assessment? The assessment stands, as far as I and my fellow members of the panel are concerned. It is an indication of how we have to be so very careful, because we don't always know how many fish are out there. All we have to do, if we're pushing the harvest right up to a limit, is make a mistake and we're in real trouble.
Now if that is so, even when the runs are abundant, just stop to consider what it means when we are in a diminished position. So when the runs are low - let us say they are low because of water conditions - then what risk aversion means is that you have to take extraordinary steps to make sure that of that very low return a maximum number arrive on the spawning grounds so that you are maintaining the stock.
In other words, say in an abundant year you decide you can harvest 85% of the return. Don't think I'm promoting that; I think that's too high. But you might do it and get away with it, because that might mean a million fish get on the river. But if in a very low return you harvest up to that measure, you are taking extraordinary risks with the capacity of the stock to reproduce itself.
So risk aversion is something that should be there if the stocks are abundant, but to play any games with risk aversion when the stocks are diminished is just straight madness.
Mr. Cummins: Thank you on that. I think we do have a problem with this risk aversion management. I think it's a matter of public record that the government hesitated in chinook management in the Queen Charlottes this year. They were told by departmental scientists months ago, in fact they knew it for the last several years, that chinook were in trouble in the Queen Charlottes. They knew that the returns to the west coast of Vancouver Island on chinook were down 93% to 97% from two years ago. Yet it took until last week before they closed a very effective commercial sport fishery in the Queen Charlottes. But you know that's another issue.
I'd like to return, if I could, to the Blewett report. It says here that:
- Despite DFO's progress in 1995, and run sizes that fall short of escapement targets, there is
clearly a need for even more prudence in planning and management in 1996 and future years.
- These escapement targets are not adequate, however, to preserve all stocks, and therefore fall
far short of achieving resource conservation, as defined by Olver et al.
I have a letter here that was sent to Ms Lorraine Loomis, who is the chair of the Fraser River panel, from the Swinomish Tribal Council, down in La Conner, Washington. The letter is fromMr. Lill, vice-president of the Fraser River panel. He says that:
- Escapement targets noted above are below Canada's spawning escapement objectives for Early
Stuart, Early Summer, and Late stock groups...
- He gives the numbers, which are 120,000, 280,000 and 300,000 respectively, for those three
rivers in the Fraser system.
- ...because the size of the forecasted runs do not permit attainment of the escapement objectives
for these stocks. Some very limited food fishing will take place at these run sizes subject to
negotiations with First Nations.
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Mr. Fraser: Let me try to answer or comment. First of all, I can't speak for Mr. Lill, and I'm not here as the Minister of Fisheries.
Mr. Cummins: No.
Mr. Fraser: Let's deal with the first part of your question, which is whether risk aversion is adequate for all stocks, which is what I think you mentioned.
There has always been a problem in British Columbia. If you're operating from the traditional commercial point of view, your money is in the big runs and the most valuable species. The consequence of this is that this is where you want DFO to put its attention and its resources. It should build those runs, because that's where the money is.
The consequence of that has been that - this is the argument others put up - while you have concentrated on the runs in the Fraser and Skeena systems, you have neglected a lot of other runs all up and down the coast.
An argument comes back from some people who represent commercial fisheries. If they have to worry about every little stream, it's going to make harvesting these salmon very difficult indeed. Fisheries wondered how it could find the resources to make sure they're attending to every stream on this enormously long coastline.
So there was a kind of inevitability to this, especially as resources for monitoring, maintenance, enforcement and habitat protection were reduced. I want to point out that this was done some years ago, not by the present government, but it was started by the former government. I'm just pointing that out. It isn't something that happened last year.
The consequence now is that from a commercial point of view we are very much concentrated in two river systems: the Fraser and the Skeena. The Skeena, at the present time, is in pretty good shape, whereas the Fraser is not. The Fraser, however, is not a finished river by any means. I don't think Mr. Cummins was suggesting that.
What risk aversion is, in terms of what our committee believed it should be, is not something that just applies to one river system in which one finds the prime commercial salmon run, but it's got to be applied in such a way that we are retaining the stocks all up and down the coast.
For instance, Dr. Carl Waters brought out a paper a few months ago. He said that in the Gulf of Georgia, 50 years ago, there were 100 streams and rivers feeding salmon into the Gulf of Georgia. He says there are only 20 streams and rivers left feeding salmon into the gulf. Some of that is due to urban development. Some of it was due to logging in the headwaters of the river systems. Some of it was due to highways. Some of it was due to other things. But some of it was also probably due to the fact that stocks in some of those smaller streams got scooped up in the general fishery, not because somebody was intentionally trying to wipe them out, but because in order to meet the overall harvest expectations these small stocks or small numbers were not given the attention they perhaps should have been given.
When I was a kid growing up in Vancouver and Howe Sound, there were all kinds of little streams. During the summer we used to go catch trout. They probably weren't trout; they probably were salmon, small salmon. I'm talking about when I was six, seven, eight years of age. Some of those streams may not have had more than 100 or 200 fish come back each year. But the sum total of all those streams starts to mount up.
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Risk aversion has to be more than just addressing the prime run going up the Fraser River. It has to be addressing the entire coastline.
The other problem that comes in is this. I'm putting a problem that is put by others in this debate in British Columbia. If you enhance, for instance, sockeye on the Skeena system and you increase the number of sockeye coming back by 50% or 30%, then the argument is, well, you have to get a maximum harvest out of those returning fish to make it pay; it's public money that enhanced them. The trouble is that the weaker stocks - not weaker in the sense that the fish aren't strong, but the lesser stocks that run with the sockeye - then get hammered in that high harvest that takes place in order to get the economic return on the sockeye. Those other stocks are the chinook, the steelhead, and the coho. This has been one of the great arguments on the Skeena River.
So when you talk about risk aversion, it's not just a case of fixing a percentage of the returning run. It also has to take into account the lesser stocks that are coming in with it. It also has to take into account all those streams that aren't the major producers, that aren't the commercial blue-ribbon streams, but that nonetheless collectively are the determinant of whether or not we're going to have fish on the west coast in coming generations.
One thing I must in fairness say is I know there was a great debate behind closed doors about the chinook. We all know that. You wouldn't believe me if I told you there wasn't. We all know it. But the fact is that, if I can put it that way, the tough risk aversion decision was taken by Minister Mifflin.
Mr. Cummins: He hesitated, but that's beside the point.
The Chairman: Mr. McWhinney.
Mr. Fraser: I just should say, Mr. Chairman, that Mr. Cummins appeared in front of our committee, and I want the committee to know he made a signal contribution in his presentation. It was lucid. It was factual. It was not filled with rhetoric. It was helpful. I just want you to know that.
Mr. McWhinney (Vancouver Quadra): Mr. Chairman, while we're here I too would like to say I value Mr. Cummins. He is very well informed on this issue and he has shared a lot of his opinions with me in private as well as published them in public fora. This is a committee that works very well, in a collegial way.
I'd also like to echo his comments about you, John. I think all of us in B.C. - nationally, but in B.C. in particular - respect your enormous contributions to public life over the last 25 or more years.
Mr. Fraser: We're both maturing.
Mr. McWhinney: It's of particular value to us in this period of crisis in the west coast salmon industry to have you enlisted by the department - ``drafted'' I think is the best word for it - to help us. We're very grateful for that.
I want to come back, though. My colleague Herb and I have divided some responsibilities here. I want to concentrate on this problem-solving machinery. We've exhausted, in a sort of hierarchy-mounting way, the various problem-solving procedures available with the Americans.
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I'm particularly concerned by the latest departmental scientific advice that 37% of the mortality rate in chinooks, the main fish of the sport fishes, comes from the action of the State of Alaska. It's very clear that if the State of Alaska would behave as a good neighbour on this and exercise conservation measures, restraint measures, in the full letter and spirit of the Pacific Salmon Treaty, then the crisis of the west coast sport fishery for this year would be certainly alleviated and probably resolved.
So I made a comment in the House yesterday. In international law the United States is responsible for the actions of its constituent states; that's to say the State of Alaska. We understand the problems for a president in an election year, but I wish they'd get their act together in Alaska and start behaving as a good neighbour.
Coming back to the problem-solving machinery, escalating upwards we've exhausted negotiations, diplomatic good offices, mediation. We proposed moving from mediation, which is non-binding, to arbitration. I take it that this has definitely been rejected by the United States. What now seems to be on the table clearly has less efficacy than arbitration. But I wondered whether it had been on the table to discuss some of the machinery developed with some American expertise and contribution - for example, the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement, the trilateral Canada-U.S.-Mexico one, and of course the World Trade Organization.
Has consideration been given to the possibility? You would know that diplomacy is the art of the possible, so I'd respect your view if you said that it's impossible for the Americans at this stage. Non-binding dispute settlement panels... For example, the World Trade Organization takes you all the way to a binding decision where you get a panel that can make a conclusion. The parties don't have to adopt it, but then when it comes and it's published, if they don't obey it they're pretty well held up as bad citizens, bad states.
The panel that you proposed is more loose, more informal. It brings in the third parties, who are always a problem.
I remember that in the U.S.-Iran arbitration tribunal the neutral people were the Swedes. It ended up with the Swedes getting their ears boxed by unhappy parties. The third party is either completely useless or in an impossible position.
Have we considered bilateral panels that would have full decision-making procedures applied up to the point of the final decision, which isn't binding? Is that off the cards?
Mr. Fraser: What I said earlier, Dr. McWhinney, was that at the moment where we are I think is quite close to a joint declaration from Canada and the United States that we will proceed to a third-party independent panel to consider all these matters and to report back to each government to make that report public. But it would not be binding.
I also pointed out that there are two other matters that are not settled by any means yet and will require some serious work. There are the terms of reference. If those are appropriate, they might meet some of the points you are raising. The second is the appointees to such a panel. I think I said, Mr. Chairman, that Canada would not oppose some appointees or an appointee from other than Canada and the United States.
I was listening carefully to what you said and I put that away as a caveat. However, that is not a big sticking-point at the moment.
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I think at the moment we're going to have to take it step by step. If we can get agreement on the establishment of a panel appointed by both Canada and the United States it is going to make recommendations that will meet at least one of the points you raised. It will be public. Also, its deliberations will be public. That has a certain imperative to it.
In any event, some of those questions you raise are really going to be part of the continuing discussion on this.
Mr. McWhinney: What one would hope for, and I think it could be very effective, is if it were to be non-binding, then the Americans might accept having a two-person panel, to which, for example, we could refer a very specific issue: is the State of Alaska contravening the 1985 treaty in its action or non-actions in relation to the chinook salmon in 1996? In other words, we stress in our law schools, as you know, that the actual decision... We're trying to get people away from the courts to settling by joint panels, joint - ``arbitration'' is the wrong word - problem-solving out of the courts. It would be just to get the report made in the openness you speak of, but with a small panel, two people, three people, four, but not more, and with the ability to handle a situation quickly. I would think - and I think you might agree with me - if we could get a group of say two, one Canadian, one American, ruling on the chinook issue and the State of Alaska -
Mr. Fraser: Dr. McWhinney, as far as I'm concerned, that would be a very helpful exercise right now. It would probably be in addition to or collateral to the main exercise with respect to the treaty itself.
I pointed out to the committee that there was a court case last year. If one looks carefully at the findings of that court case, the consequence of those findings was that the Alaskans were ordered to stop fishing. I also used the chinook fishery as an example of why conservation is such an essential part of this treaty.
But you pose a very immediate and difficult problem. It's consistent with what Mr. Cummins was saying. We have a very serious conservation problem with the chinook. Canada's practically stopped catching them this year. We cut it 50% last year. The Americans had a summit on May 20 with Washington, Oregon, and Alaska. They came out with a set of principles. If you look at the principles, they're fine, but the proof of it all will come in the numbers that are set for the harvest of chinook in southeastern Alaska. As you well know, sir, but maybe not everybody on the committee does, about 90% of those chinook taken in Alaskan waters are bound for either British Columbia or Washington-Oregon waters, almost all of them. Perhaps we could discuss that further.
Mr. McWhinney: Do you happen to know, as a matter of information...? The court case you speak of was intriguing and breathtaking in several respects; the action brought by the States of Washington and Oregon and the native Indians in Washington to restrain the State of Alaska in its fishing practices. That was launched in a U.S. federal district court and the moving states won. What was novel was the intervention by the Canadian government. A foreign ministry legally intervened in the case, which is novel. We intervened in a process in a foreign jurisdiction. The case is now under appeal.
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On the island - I think you and I were both present at the conference - I strongly urged local groups to encourage their American affiliates, native Indians to encourage American native Indians, to intervene in the case on appeal. I also urged our foreign ministry to intervene.
Have you heard any information on the two points? One point is the degree of compliance or non-compliance by the State of Alaska with the first ruling, and the second is the state of the action. I suggested that we seek an interlocutory injunction requiring all parties, including the State of Alaska, to abide by the district court ruling pending disposition of the appeal. Do you have any information from Washington on what's happening in the American litigation? It would now be before the United States Court of Appeals, which is the second highest.
Mr. Fraser: The best information I could get when I was in both Washington and Oregon a week ago is that final decisions with respect to the continuance of the case had not been made by the parties. That's all I can say at the moment.
Mr. McWhinney: To your knowledge, was an interlocutory injunction sought requiring compliance to the first?
Mr. Fraser: I'd have to look at the judgment.
Mr. McWhinney: If it follows the normal court procedure it could be 1997 before you get a final definitive ruling.
Thank you very much.
The Chairman: Mr. Dhaliwal.
Mr. Dhaliwal (Vancouver South): Let me welcome you, John. On behalf of the government, I want to commend you on the work you've done in the fisheries area, your work on the panel, and now your work on the salmon treaty.
Also, let me say that it's a great honour and pleasure to represent the riding that you represented for some twenty years, the riding of Vancouver South.
Mr. Fraser: I hope you know that I left it in good shape.
Mr. Dhaliwal: I don't know if I'm going to be able to serve the time you've put in. After two and half years I know what hard work it requires, and I know the amount of time it requires.
Let me talk about the fisheries issue. As you know, I was involved closely with Brian Tobin when he was minister. And, as you know, the salmon treaty is a very important issue for British Columbia. It's a very explosive issue as well, particularly in these times when there are a tremendous amount of difficulties in the fisheries.
I was on a talk show program with the representative of the governor. I was pushing him on this point of why they're afraid to go to arbitration. The only explanation he could give me was that they feel it's illegal to go to arbitration. I didn't buy that at all.
Mr. McWhinney: I'm sorry, what was that phrase?
Mr. Dhaliwal: They said it was illegal to go to arbitration.
Mr. McWhinney: Illegal to go to arbitration? He needs a good law course.
Mr. Dhaliwal: Yes. So I told him that this simply wasn't the fact, that he should go back to the governor, and that they should not be afraid. After all the talks that have been happening over many years, if two people cannot come to an arrangement, this is the only option out - after the years we've spent talking about it.
I think there's another misconception. The representative said ``We're open to talks with Canada. Alaska is willing to talk.'' I told him they've been talking, but this is a treaty with the United States of America, not with Alaska, and we expect them to abide by the treaty. They were not abiding by it, but were in fact breaching it. They were not complying with both the conservation and the equity issues.
As you know, the problem really is with Alaska. I know we were able to get the cooperation of Washington, Oregon, and the southern tribes to work with us to put pressure on the American government. And we had some assurances from senior levels of the American government that they would put a lot of effort into trying to resolve this issue. Obviously we're disappointed that it hasn't been resolved.
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John, have you had the opportunity to talk to the people, the governors of Washington and Oregon, and how they can be helpful as well? Because the real problem is Alaska. Obviously they're not interested in having a resolution; they're not interested in really solving this issue, and that's the hold-up. I presume that they have some sort of a de facto veto on this issue, and therefore that is a problem. With the people in Washington, there's no political will to deal with this issue. They can in fact deal with it, but there's no political will to deal with it because they don't want to have a fight with Alaska.
Mr. Fraser: Let me see if I can respond to that. First of all, the position I've taken on behalf of the Government of Canada and all of us concerned about the fishery is that the treaty is with the United States, not with Alaska. That's acknowledged, and then of course they say ``but''. I outlined at the very beginning of my comments the problems they have with the enabling legislation.Dr. McWhinney referred to the very real realities with respect to the fact that the administration is democratic and the Senate and the House of Representatives are controlled by the other party.
With respect to an arbitration being illegal, there has been no suggestion made by the U.S. State Department that this is why they have not gone along with arbitration. They have their own reasons, but certainly it was never advanced that to enter into a binding arbitration would be illegal. I don't believe for one minute that it would be, and I think you were right in saying that it wouldn't be.
We have to remember that with the chinook the immediate problem is the harvest rate, which may or may not be set. The rate of the harvest is set by the Alaskan fishery commissioners. We also have to keep in mind that about 800 of the boats that will be fishing for those chinook come up from Washington and Oregon, so it's complex. It's also complex with respect to the interceptions of sockeye going into the Fraser.
What we're trying to do is get this thing into a forum where the consequences of a thorough discussion, and also the fact that it will be public, will get us to a point where we can come to some kind of agreement.
I point out, Mr. Chairman, that there is no court we can go to. If this were a civil dispute we'd go to court, but there isn't a court we can go to. Maybe there ought to be, but there isn't. So we have to proceed in other ways.
The Chairman: The international court at The Hague doesn't come into this dispute at all?
Mr. McWhinney: No. [Inaudible - Editor]
Mr. Fraser: Dr. McWhinney is the expert on this. That's my understanding - and even if it wasn't, I would accept his.
The Chairman: We'd like to go to Mr. Wells.
Mr. Dhaliwal: I'd just like to make one quick point, Mr. Chairman. I know this would be of great interest to the ambassador for the environment.
There are up to 100 dams on the Columbia River system, and Bonneville Power Administration in the States spends $100 million on the fisheries. I think that's a very good example of how hard it is to rebuild parts of the environment when you've destroyed them. Even if you can spend huge amounts of money, once it's destroyed it becomes very difficult. This is the problem Washington is having in terms of reviving its fishery: they've just damaged it so much that no matter how much money they spend on it, they're not able to revive it.
The Chairman: Mr. Wells.
Mr. Wells (South Shore): Mr. Fraser, I represent a Nova Scotia riding, but I've taken an interest in the B.C. fishery. My riding is South Shore, which is one of the larger fishing ridings in the country.
One of the major issues we've heard about in the B.C. fishery is the aboriginal fisheries strategy. I know you're aware of that. It's been suggested on a number of occasions that the mackerel is one of the causes of the decrease in the abundance of fish. It has also been suggested that the AFS is also a major contributor. I'd like to get your comments on that and a general comment on the AFS itself. What is your feeling on it? Should it be a policy we should abandon or is it one we should pursue?
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Mr. Fraser: The aboriginal fishing strategy was implemented a few years ago. In general terms it was to ensure that native Canadians, especially when they lived on or near the streams and rivers, took an active part in the conservation of the fishery itself. That would be very hard to quarrel with. The issue that created, and continues to create, division in British Columbia were the pilot projects in some places that permitted the natives to sell commercially the fish that were traditionally their food and ceremonial fishery. Without any question, in British Columbia this has been been a very divisive and hotly debated issue.
Our investigation committee said about this that we had no mandate to say whether or not there should or shouldn't be an aboriginal fishing strategy, but first of all, if there was, it was completely wrong for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to abdicate its constitutional responsibility to manage the fishery. We were critical of the fact that aspects of the aboriginal fishing strategy were not properly administered, and accountability was missing.
The second thing we said is that the Sparrow decision did not say there should be the sale of food fish. What it said was that the first requirement is conservation, the second is food fish and ceremonial, and the third is commercial and sport and other fisheries. But the Sparrow decision did not require the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to create an aboriginal commercial sale of food fish.
We don't know what happened. There were two incidents of missing sockeye. I'm now talking about the first. We do not know for sure what happened to 400,000 or 500,000 sockeye that seemed to disappear in the first incident. Some people thought it was because there was warm water in the Fraser. We couldn't find any real evidence that it was warm water. Certainly we were told unofficially - and officially - that a great many of those fish were taken and were sold in a fisheries black market.
While that is not acceptable, I think, to most Canadians, nor, for that matter, to most of our native Canadians, we did not say, nor could we have said - we didn't have evidence to indicate this - that the major problem of depletion of salmon was due to the aboriginal fishing strategy or the sale of the food fish. What we did say is if this continued uncontrolled and unaccountable with nobody knowing what was going on, then it could have a very serious impact, because it would be conduct that was out of control.
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Mr. Wells: Just because your opinion is so well respected, do you have an opinion on the pilot projects of the commercial sale? Do you think those were a good idea or do you think they were ill-founded?
Mr. Fraser: Well, my opinion is probably just as good as anybody else's, and I don't think it's my place to give it, necessarily.
We looked at it. We said it was flawed and we criticized it for that. We made a very strong point that under no circumstances should the Government of Canada be giving away its constitutional authority, because once it does that, it abandons its responsibility. But it's not my place to make policy.
Mr. Wells: No, I agree. But you seem to be pointing to an administrative and an accountability problem more than any policy problem.
Mr. Fraser: It was policy to establish the aboriginal fisheries strategy.
Mr. Wells: I'm thinking now of the commercial portion of it, the one you zeroed in on, the pilot projects for sale.
Mr. Fraser: You're opening up an enormous debate. I pointed out that it seemed to us the pilot projects were done because some people within the system - and this was done several years ago - had the view that the Sparrow decision, the land claims negotiations and the cases that were on their way to the Supreme Court of Canada all impelled policy to be out ahead of what they anticipated would be the result, and that was going to be a significant allocation of fish for commercial purposes to native tribes on the rivers.
We pointed out that may or may not happen, but certainly there was no legal basis upon which that policy was driven at the time it was taken. But we did not say all of the fisheries problems on the west coast were the consequence of either the aboriginal fisheries strategy or the natives. We did not say that because we didn't have evidence of that.
Mr. Wells: I do appreciate that.
Mr. Fraser: But I'm not going to mislead the committee; it's a matter of very real debate in the province.
Mr. Wells: I know we don't have time to get into it, and I just wanted to get some general comments. I appreciate the complexity of it and I appreciate your comments. Thank you.
The Chairman: Mr. Cummins.
Mr. Cummins: I appreciate as well and underline what Ambassador Fraser just said on the AFS problems.
One other point I'd mention is that one of your recommendations was that these pilot sales projects not be expanded, and in fact they have been under the excess salmon to spawning requirement on the Skeena River, which is not regarded highly in many quarters in B.C.
The point I'd like to come back to has to do with the treaty. You mentioned the formation of this independent, third-party panel, and I do endorse that idea and think it's a great idea. But my view of the problems we face in the treaty is that in reality we don't have a treaty here with the U.S., simply because of the problems with the enabling legislation in the United States. The reality of it is that we must somehow negotiate a treaty with these four independent groups that have veto power.
This thing has gotten mired down on the equity issue, and for good reasons. But the problem with the treaty goes beyond just equity; the problem with the treaty has to do with managing a common resource, a resource we share with the United States. You very ably, capably and clearly pointed that out early on. These fish are continually passing from one national jurisdiction, if you will, to the other. That's the reality. We share this resource with our neighbour to the north and south on the west coast and there's nothing to be done about it.
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My view of this problem with the treaty is if you're looking for a solution, the solution may very well be found through addressing the conservation issues and the management issues rather than by doing a frontal attack, if you will, and trying to address the equity issue. I say that because I saw some things happen when Canada was dealing with the conference on migratory species and straddling stocks at the UN and so on.
Have you considered the views I have just expressed? Do you care to comment on them? Given the shortage of time here, if you had time to discuss those issues privately...because I do think there's some value to them.
Mr. Fraser: Let me respond in this way. First of all, I said you can't de-link conservation and equity, and one of the reasons for equity was that this was an incentive for the host country to do all the things it ought to be doing not just to maintain stocks but to enhance them and look after the streams, etc. It all has a conservation spin-off. But if you ask me what I think is the reason for having a Pacific Salmon Treaty, it's the fish. It's not the harvest. If you look after the fish, these other things will look after themselves. The fundamental reason we entered into the treaty in the first place was not to argue about who got the most fish. It was to make sure we had fish. I see every reason why that should be a key issue in the proposed independent panel.
Mr. Cummins: But aren't there problems between Canada and the U.S., in that our management regimes are different? In Alaska I don't believe they even count steelhead. They don't even recognize it as a species. The interception of Skeena steelhead in southeast Alaska could be a problem, yet it's -
Mr. Fraser: If this panel is effective, I think these matters you're raising will be discussed. I don't see how they can be avoided.
On the other issue you raised, that this is really a problem in dealing with the Alaskans, yes, there definitely have been problems in dealing with Alaska, especially with equity. There is now a very real problem in dealing with Alaska, put equity aside: whether or not they're going to continue blindly to devastate these stocks of chinook, almost all of which are bred in British Columbia or southern U.S. waters. That is a very real conservation issue. That's why the court stopped them from fishing last year.
However, I don't think it's accurate to say the only issue in this thing is Alaska's views about something. There are a number of other issues. If you were an American from the south spending the $100 million Harb Dhaliwal has referred to on trying to rebuild Columbia stock and you watched the potential for us hammering the heck out of those stocks on the southwest coast of Vancouver Island, you would say wait a minute, Alaska's not the only thing we have to look at.
Of course one of our best arguments for getting back and settling this thing is that what one side does to us we can also do to them. That's the very thing we're trying to avoid.
I know Mr. Cummins wanted to ask me about the Mifflin plan. The first thing I'm going to say is that the plan was not designed just by the new minister, Minister Mifflin. It was in the works for quite a long time before. Secondly, it does flow out of the recommendations made by the independent sockeye investigation panel that the fleet should be reduced. All I'm going to say at the moment, because there are lots of arguments about how it's being done and what the effect of it is, is that among most people in British Columbia there is no question that there needs to be fleet reduction.
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The Chairman: Regardless, Mr. Ambassador, of the name of the plan - I don't think there's anything personal here - the question has always been whether fleet reduction is going to result in less fish being caught. Are the conservation measures actually there? That's the question a lot of people have.
Mr. Fraser: If fleet reduction doesn't reduce capacity, then you could catch just as many fish, but if, along with fleet reduction, there is insistence on risk aversion in harvesting, you won't catch as many fish in runs, especially in threatened runs, as you did before.
The second thing about fleet reduction is that it makes it very much easier to manage the fishery at any given time. In 1994, when about 90% of the sockeye came down Johnstone Strait, you had over 5,000 vessels in a few miles taking those fish.
I and others have been critical of the fact that some years ago DFO was stripped of the resources to have proper surveillance, proper monitoring and proper enforcement. That is a very serious issue. We didn't get into it. I know we're running out of time here. Someday, perhaps, I can come back and discuss that. But I can tell you, even if they'd had what they wanted they would have had a nightmare trying to keep track of what was happening.
One of the things that happened with that massive fishing in that small area, as Mr. Cummins well knows, is that it became impossible to know how many fish were being taken. Now, you can say there were a lot of subsidiary reasons for that, but it comes back to the fact that there was such a mass of fishing in a small place they couldn't adequately control it, and they couldn't even adequately measure the numbers of fish being taken as each fishing opening came. As a consequence, they were wrong, first of all, about how many fish they thought were there, and they took out a lot more than I think they probably thought they were taking at the time. When the fish started to go up the river, that's when we reached the point where one more 12-hour fishery would have wiped out the Adams River run.
So fleet reduction, if the catching capacity remains the same, doesn't mean you couldn't take as many fish, but if you coupled it with wiser risk aversion, you wouldn't take as many fish, especially where you shouldn't be taking it.
The other point - and this is very important - is that with fewer vessels it makes the management of the fishery easier.
The Chairman: This is a whole new... We'd like to have another hour with you on that. Maybe you can invite us out to British Columbia and we can discuss it further.
Mr. Fraser: You didn't even ask me about the cod.
The Chairman: No - and we had no intention of asking you about the cod.
Mr. Cummins: It's interesting to note that Blewett says that DFO's response to the recommendations of the round table stands in sharp contrast to the industry's position. He says ``the Roundtable was a communications exercise in which the commercial industry was asked to speak, where it achieved a significant degree on consensus on its proposals, and where the substance of many of those proposals was subsequently ignored by DFO''.
I say that, even though many of the proposals contained in the so-called Mifflin plan I do support, and I agree with many of your comments on that.
The Chairman: Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador, for coming. I hope you enjoyed yourself last night.
We are adjourned.