May 12, 2004 Fisheries Act Amendments Fails to Provide Authority OTTAWA- "The amendments to the Fisheries Act contained in Bill C-33 fail to give the Department of Fisheries authority to allow for separate race-based fisheries such as the pilot sales program on the Fraser River," said John Cummins, M.P. (Delta-South Richmond). The Bill gives the Fisheries Department bureaucrats the authority to issue communal fishing licenses to aboriginal organizations. The aboriginal organization holding the communal license would license the fisherman and vessels participating in the fisheries permitted by the license, an authority presently reserved for the Minister. The effect of C-33 is to give literally hundreds of aboriginal organizations across the country the licensing authority currently reserved for the Minister. Furthermore, the terms and conditions attached to communal licenses would override the general regulations that govern the recreational and commercial fisheries. The Department wrongly claims that the provisions of this Bill are being used to allow the government to satisfy aboriginal and treaty rights identified by the Supreme Court of Canada. In point of fact the bill represents an attempt by the Minister of Fisheries to make legal the Aboriginal Communal Fishing Licenses Regulations, which have been in place since the early nineties. These Regulations were found to be illegal by the Joint Standing Committee for the Scrutiny of Regulations in 1997. Threats by the Scrutiny Committee to disallow the offending regulations forced the Minister in 2003 to promise appropriate changes to the Fisheries Act. Nevertheless, make no mistake Bill C-33 fails to clear the way for legal race-based fisheries. The Kapp decision of the British Columbia Provincial Court found that the Charter of Rights and Freedoms prohibits the government from giving aboriginals a special preference in the fishery unless such a preference flows from an aboriginal or treaty right. The ham-fisted efforts of this Liberal government to impose race-based fisheries in British Columbia have impoverished aboriginal and non-aboriginal fishermen and cost the economy of British Columbia hundreds of millions of dollars. "This nonsense has to end. Race-based fisheries are unconstitutional, they demean all fishermen, they undermine the single conservation and management regime required to protect fish stocks and manage the fishery, and they create racial divisions and conflicts that have no place in the fishery," said Cummins. Contact: John Cummins, M.P.
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