No proof of illegal salmon sales by Natives, but feds believe they're guilty

by Carlito Pablo on May 20, 2011 at 12:31 pm
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Fisheries authorities don’t have proof of the alleged illegal sale of salmon by aboriginal fishers.

Scott Coultish, regional chief of intelligence and investigation services for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, made this admission at the afternoon hearing on Wednesday (May 18) of a federal inquiry looking into the depletion of salmon stocks in the Fraser River.

However, Coultish maintained that fisheries authorities believe that most of the salmon caught for food, social, and ceremonial purposes by First Nations groups from the Fraser in the 2005 fishery season were sold commercially.

This assertion that the salmon may have been illegally sold was backed by Randy Nelson, regional director of conservation and protection, at the same hearing by the Cohen commission.

Both Coultish and Nelson appeared before the commission the previous day (May 17).

Among the exhibits included in the May 17 hearing were two Fisheries and Oceans Canada reports about fish intended for food, social, and ceremonial use by Natives.

The first was a memorandum addressed to the department’s deputy minister and dated June 6, 2006. The document noted that at the end of the fishing season in September 2005, there were about 1.9 million pounds or approximately 345,000 pieces of food, social, and ceremonial salmon in 110 cold storage plants throughout the Lower Mainland.

The paper further reported that 60 to 70 percent of the fish “have now been removed from cold storage”.

The second document, an intelligent assessment paper about a department operation code-named Project Ice Storm, stated that food, social, and ceremonial salmon was being laundered into commercial markets.

The document dated November 27, 2006, talked about door-to-door sales, as well as back door sales to restaurants and fish establishments.

Coultish and Nelson testified that fisheries authorities hold the belief that most of the stocks in cold storage were intended for sale in the commercial market but there was no evidence to back this up.

Comments (16) Add New Comment
J R Day
May 20, 2011 at 2:19 pm
The 'Chief Investigator' knows about many of the details but can't prove it. So why is he the 'Chief' of anything??
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monty/that's me
May 21, 2011 at 8:41 am
Someone should contact that Fundamentalist Christian John Cummins as he had a great deal to say about this topic at a Council meeting in Delta a few years ago. He named companies involved in this activity.
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Archie Bunker
May 21, 2011 at 9:15 am
Come out to the reservation in Pitt Meadows and watch them openly sell the fish as fast as they can catch it.
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devils advocate
May 21, 2011 at 9:20 am
usually food fish are in grannies freezer not some commercial cold storage facility. If natives are so poor they need to catch fish to survive how can they afford to pay freezer costs?
put 2 and 2 together and you get laundering of FSC fish plain and simple...and Gail Sparrows concerns just magnify this problem....
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miguel
May 22, 2011 at 10:30 am
Tsk Tsk. Natives behaving like white people. It's almost as if they're human.
Miguel
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Angler
May 22, 2011 at 2:20 pm

- Non-native people in BC have always "believed" that natives were poaching salmon (and not in the cooking sense). But then, there are people who "believed" that the world would end yesterday. "Belief" is a poor substitute for rational thought.

- There is absolutely no doubt that some native people do illegally sell salmon. But then, if you go to a flea market on any given weekend, you will see many people (non-native mostly) illegally selling everything from stolen goods to cheap counterfeit products.

- Simple enforcement would control the illegal sale of salmon, just as it does the illegal sale of other products. But our governments seem to stupidly believe that they can introduce laws and regulations without enforcement. This produces a situation where everyone "knows" that the law is a joke.

- Natives didn't steal and sell 9 million sockeye. Even in the worst-case scenario presented by a government agency desperate to defend its mismanagement, illegal sales represented a small percentage of the "Missing Run". Instead of focussing on the easy target, perhaps we need to ask: What happened to the other 95%?

Same as it ever was ...

(PS - The entire notion that native people should be prohibited from trading in salmon - i.e. selling them - is beyond stupid. But that's a topic for another day.)
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Ernie Crey
May 22, 2011 at 6:32 pm
Let me see, DFO starts an investigation 6 or 7 years ago, runs out of money so they can't complete the sleuthing and then brings up the failed investgation all these years later in a bid to get more funding to do more of the same? Makes sense.
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Salty one
May 22, 2011 at 8:09 pm
I think it's safe to say that these particular fish cops weren't from SEAL Team 6.
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Taxpayers R Us
May 23, 2011 at 1:46 am
If the fishery is open, it should be not be limited along racist lines.

Having said that, I'd rather have them selling salmon than crack pipes.
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R U Kiddingme
May 24, 2011 at 12:21 pm
Look, to square it all up, all you have to do is realize that "Ceremonial Purposes" includes the famous "Selling Whole Sockeye From Freezer In Back of Pickup Truck In Corner Of Powell River WalMart Parking Lot Ceremony." I have been an avid participant in this ceremony many times and find that it has added a lot of culture to my life.
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Ernie Crey
May 25, 2011 at 4:08 pm
To RU Kidding Me: Why not turn yourself in?
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R U Kiddingme
May 26, 2011 at 8:14 pm
For what? I was supporting the right of a sovereign people to earn a living. I'm an activist!
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Eye witness
May 27, 2011 at 5:19 pm
Of course they don't have proof of natives selling fish because they won't let there CO's confront them. The natives frequently carry guns . It happens every year in the fraser valley , Port Alberni , and the Skeena region. I would suggest that people start to video these guys and start to post on U tube to convince the public that they are not the great saviors of mother earth. Ernie might have a harder time denying what he is well aware of.
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X-DFO
Aug 9, 2011 at 8:01 pm
Tonight I had the opportunity to purchase some of 200 sockeye from the back of a truck, here, in my town. I had a "discussion" about the food, societal and ceremonial aspect of the transaction, and got the same old malarkey, so of course decided to decline the generous offer, of $15 per fish. I recall a whole lot of DFO officers being told to O.R.R. (observe, record and report) and do nothing else when I was employed in the department. Staring at illegal activity through a pair of field glasses, or a nightscope, is useless to the deterrence of this activity and was frustrating to the field officers.
Politics within DFO, likley to prevent a Bolt decision as in Washington State, has done a huge disservice to the department, the resource and the people for whom DFO is intended to serve, The illegal selling of fish continues and I for one am saddened by that.
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Ernie CRey
Dec 22, 2012 at 6:21 pm
They sell salmon at Katzie because the band signs agreements with the DFO that accomodates such sales. The band has particpated in salmon sales agreements in many seasons extending back to 1993.
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LostMyGlasses
Dec 24, 2012 at 11:08 am
I am not First nations, but I respect their culture. They managed the fishery on the pacific for thousands of years. I've read journals by some of the first Europeans to live in the lower mainland, and they talked of so many salmon in creeks and rivers that they would push each other onto the land. That was roughly 1890.

In roughly 100 years, We (Canadians) have absolutely F****** this fishery. Sorry, someone had to say it. No one to blame but ourselves.Run of River, Fish Farms, overfishing, urban and industrial pressure on spawning streams. These are the death knells of Salmon in our province.

(oh, an I've seen both sportsfishers and commercial fishers sell some fish on the side)
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