Ban angers Native fishermen

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Chief Ralph Akiwenzie is outraged the Ontario natural resources ministry has banned the purchase of most Bruce Peninsula fish, effectively closing down a Native fishery.

"We're not going to stand by and let this happen. We have to use every means at our disposal to address this injustice," said Akiwenzie, chief of the Chippewas of Nawash at the Cape Croker reserve on the peninsula.

Fish wholesalers who breach the fisheries order issued by the ministry could face fines as high as $100,000 for a first offence, said John Cooper, the spokesperson for the ministry's Lake Huron Management Unit.

"This move by the ministry is a very strong departure from the spirit of working together. It has destroyed credibility and good faith." - Chief Ralph Akiwenzie.

Photo: Ted Shaw

Based on information filed with the ministry by fish buyers, it was determined that too many fish have been taken from the area this year, he said. While Cooper refused to release the actual amounts reported sold, he did say the 1999 allowable harvest for the region set by the ministry was 559,532 kilograms of whitefish and 16,878 kilograms of lake trout.

The ministry determined the 1999 total allowable catch in all species except chub has been reached in the area stretching from Kincardine to Collingwood in the province, said Cooper. Since 1993 when Judge David Fairgrieve ruled the Bruce Peninsula's two bands had a right to commercially fish traditional waters, fishing has become the economic main stay of his people, said Chief Akiwenzie. While the ministry is still allowing the purchase of chub, there is little market for that species, the chief said.

"We are very cognizant of our rights. We prefer to negotiate, but we'll seek legal recourse if we have to. The economic viability of this community depends on fish. We are obliged to do the right thing for our fishermen," he said.

Nawash has taken responsibility for fish conservation and has a strict management program that regulates the activities of five Native fish tugs and several smaller Native fishing outfits, said Akiwenzie.

"But people will be saying 'here the Natives go again, fishing the living daylights out of the resource,' and that's simply not true," he said.

"Conservation is the buzz word. They've perfected putting that out as an explanation for their actions, but this isn't about conservation, it's about power and politics." - Fisherman Francis Lavalley.

For Cape Croker band member Francis Lavalley, whose father and grandfather fished the waters of Lake Huron, the ministry's move doesn't come as a surprise.

"Conservation is the buzz word. They've perfected putting that out as an explanation for their actions, but this isn't about conservation, it's about power and politics," said Lavalley.

Lavalley has worked day and night, out in all weather, to try to build up his business. From its humble beginnings of one old tug boat, he now employs 14 men on three tug boats and also has two smaller vessels.

"It's like anything else, if you don't have someone willing to buy your product, you don't have a business," he said.

While there is a market for the chub, it is much less profitable because it takes 10 times the number of fish to fill each crate sent to market.Lavalley worries that his men are depending on his business for the regular wage he won't be able to pay if the ban isn't lifted early in the new year.

"The ministry will have a lawsuit on their hands if they don't open the whitefish back up soon," he said.

While the ban has come late in the year, he points out it's at a time when whitefish is particularly valuable because of the market for whitefish roe, which sells for $1.50 per pound.

"There are plenty of fish out there. They're feeding on the bottom about a mile out, so we would have no problem getting them if we had someone willing to buy them," said Lavalley.

The situation has cast a shadow over two years of mediated talks involving federal, provincial and Nawash oficials in their attempts to reach an agreement on how the fishery will be managed, said Akiwenzie.

"This move by the ministry is a very strong departure from the spirit of working together. It has destroyed credibility and good faith." Akiwenzie said the ban was issued without any consultation with his people.

Nawash has long criticized the ministry's management of the resource and its methods in calculating allowable catch and has refused to abide by a communal fishing license the ministry attempted to impose.

Earlier this year the Ontario government spent $14 million to buy out the fish quotas of the Bruce Peninsula's 10 non-Native fishing operations. That left the Saugeen First Nation and the Nawash fishery and two non-Native commercial fishing licenses in the region. Lavalley disputes the ministry's numbers saying that the non-Native licenses purchased in the bands' names totalled quotas significantly higher than the quotas assigned to the Aboriginal fishermen.

"They say we've taken too many fish, but I don't think we got enough in the first place," he said.

He points out that just one of the non-Native fishing licenses bought had a whitefish quota of 400,000 kilograms.

"And we barely get that between all of us," said Lavalley.

Rob Graham, executive director of the Ontario Commercial Fishers' Association, said four of five fish processors that buy fish from the peninsula Native fishermen will be able to get fish elsewhere.

"It will be reasonably easy to bring in fish from other parts of Ontario and Michigan and Western Canada," said Graham.

Earlier this fall there was a glut of whitefish on the market and prices fell by as much as 50 cents a pound to a low of 75 cents per pound. This made it unprofitable to go fishing, said Graham.

"It could be a different story now if there's a shortage," he said.