An early start for Gwyn and I as we left Chilliwack at 6:30 for the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in Vancouver.
To try to avoid the traffic we took the Sky Train in from Surrey, a nice comfortable ride in and we remarked as we crossed over the Fraser we wondered if the first steelhead we were going to catch in the Vedder was passing underneath us as we crossed the arms of the Fraser.
As we leave the train at the Granville station I felt sorry for all the people that were hurrying to their place of work and had to make this trip each day. I remark to Gwyn as we join the throngs of humanity on the sidewalk how lucky we were to live in Chilliwack and so near so many fishing spots.
As we near the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue at the Asia Pacific Hall on Hasting Street I am jarred back to reality. We were here to try to put forth our concerns about the situation on the Fraser River this past summer to the 9 MP's than were attending this 3 day fact finding mission on the missing sockeye on the Fraser River watershed among other fishing related topics.
For those interested these are the MP's attending in case you wish to write them: Nathan Cullen, NDP, Shawn Murphy, Liberal, Randy Kamp, Conservative, Gerald Keddy, Conservative, John Cummins, Conservative, Jean Roy, BQ, Raynald Bais, PQ, Loyla Hearn, Consevative and Tom Wappel, chair, Liberal.
As we enter the meeting venue I am a bit overwhelmed by the size of the place. I reconize it as the same place the Committee on Electoral Reform for BC had been meeting. There must be well over a hundred seats each with a mike, earphones for translation from french to english and a lot more buttons. Almost too much for country boys like Gwyn and I.
To be trueful it made me a bit nervous knowing I had to make a bit of a presentation to all these politicians made up of lawyers etc. Where was Fulcrum_29 to take my place I thought.
We sign in and we are then greeted by the clerk of the proceedings, Jim, a nice fellow that eased a bit of my fear. I ask about showing the tape of the illegal netting I have brought along. No VCR he says as takes it from me, "will make sure the committee gets to see it he assures me".
Darn away goes my presentation that I took all day yesterday to produce along with my script. More terror flows through my veins but ha I have brought a extra copy of the video with my script along. One step ahead of them as I wanted to hold the video up and ask if anyone would like a copy after my talk.
We then met up with Bill Otway from the SDA and a number of others from the Guides Association, Drift Fishers, Chilliwack Fish and Game, Fraser Valley Salmon Society, and Phil Esvick from the BC Survival Coalition. Some of us exchange our speaking notes and talk about the issues of the day.
I keep glancing at my watch as I am anxious to get things under way and promptly at 9:30 Tom Wappel calls the meeting to order.
We all take our seats, me next to Bill and I see my name displayed in front of me. We are each introduced one by one. Tony first to speak and he details the infractions he has seen and how important the salmon fishery is to the guiding industry. I miss some of the things he said in the 10 minutes he speaks as I continue to get ready for my short presentation now only 2 speakers away.
Frank follows and lists dozens of illegal fishing activity he observed during the season mostly around from Grassy upstream.
Bill follows as a lead in for the SDA and says each organization should have more time to present their case. I understand he gave the committee a 13 page report so they will get good info from that for them to digest.
Bill made the point The Fraser Panel did an excellent of managing the 2004 Fraser River sockeye and got adequate number of fish into the river to ensure healthy returns and fisheries in 4 years.
He then went on to say that FOC then takes control and they did a dismal effort to get enough fish to the spawning grounds.
Bill mentioned if one even used the extreme losses to environmental conditions over 800,000 spawners should have reached the spawning grounds, enough for a very healthy return in 2008.
Instead most of these 800,000 never showed up he says his information tells him. What happened to them?
Bill then listed 57 days he had on record of illegal netting from Feb 29 to September 20.
The next thing I know Bill has turned things over to me and I see my red light on my mike in front of me on and I believe I hear chairman Wappell call my name.
I am surprisely calm I thought anyway and felt better once I got started even though I know all eyes in the room would be on me.
I start by trying to lighten things up by saying I had brought this video tape along for you to see that is 37 minutes long but you have only given us 10 minutes, no one laughted.
So I proceeded to tell them what was on the tape would back up what the speakers ahead of me related of all the illegal drift netting they had observed. I give a brief description of each segement on the tape that showed illegal drift netting including how Rodney, Nina and I had to pull our bar rods to save in when a drift net was put out in front of us.
As I sum up I stumble a bit, how bad I will see when the transcript comes out.
I end by offering my extra copy of the tape I am holding to anyone from the committee that would like it and thankfully an assistant from John Cummins office comes and takes it.
My 2 minutes has past quickly thank goodness and I turn things over to Gwyn who list more infractions.
3 more speakers follow and all do an excellent job, we should be thankful we have such talented people giving their time to preserve our salmon and fishing opportunity.
We then break for 10 minutes and the committee then asked questions for over an hour, good ones too. I get to wade in a couple of times but I get reprimanded by the chair on one of them. O well I did my best and when you are a volunteer you do the best you can and each time you do this hopefully we get better.
As we end our turn we break for lunch. We do a little talking to the committee members before a few of us head to the Bay for lunch.
We return after lunch to hear the presentations from some Stolo and First Nations groups but I will leave the info on their presentations to a later date, too tired.
Better still we should be getting a written transcript in the future as every word is recorded so I will make it avaiable to this page if possible.
Gwyn and I then head back to the busy Vancouver streets to join the homeward bound for the weekend office workers and early Christmas shoppers, a number of them also heading for the sky train.
We each get a seat, not having to stand as we did on the way in and I take my mind off the days proceedings by talking to the lady next to me about everything but fishing.
The drive home was slow due to the rain but the time passes quickly as Gywn and I talk about the upcoming steelhead season. We arrive home 15 minutes under 12 hours since we had left a 6:30.
One final note.
Another plus side of the day was I met Chief Doug Kelly of the Soowahlie Band and First Nations Summit. I told him about Chilliwack/Vedder River Cleanup Coalition, he knew about us and was happy with the work we have been doing the last few years.
They may come on board with us as their reserve is on the Chilliwack and I will be arranging a meeting with him shortly.
I also liked what he said during his presentation today that all stakeholders in the salmon industry must try to work together.
I know that it will be difficult to do that but we must try, the future of our precious salmon are at stake, hopefully some of the findings of this committee I attended today will one day move in that direction but it will not be easy.
Sorry for the long story but you all have not had one for nearly 2 months from me.
The next one hopefully will be a fishing one as that is where I belong, on the river, not in the big city of Vancouver, for thank goodness I am a country boy as the song goes.
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Topic: Report On My Experience At The House of Commons Standing Committee On Fisheries (Read 8510 times)