From the Globe and Mail – May 18, 2011

by Mark Hume

When federal investigators in British Columbia found 345,000 sockeye
stored in 110 industrial freezers, they thought they were onto a major
black market operation for salmon caught in aboriginal food fisheries.

But
Project Ice Storm, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans intelligence
operation that found the salmon in 2005, ran out of funding and wasn’t
able to track the fish from the cold storage plants to their final
destination, the Cohen Commission heard on Tuesday.

It has long been suspected in B.C. that the aboriginal fishery is a
cover for operations, with possible organized crime links, that trade in
salmon the way others trade in drugs. Native leaders have rejected such
allegations, saying their communities need all the fish they catch
because salmon are a cultural staple in everything from births to
funeral feasts.

DFO documents filed with the commission, which is
investigating the collapse of sockeye salmon populations in the Fraser
River, show enforcement officials felt the fish, caught under “food,
social and ceremonial” licences, were destined to go into the commercial
market.

“The FSC First Nations fishery on the Lower Fraser River
is largely out of control and should be considered in all contexts, a
commercial fishery,” states a DFO intelligence assessment of Project Ice
Storm.

“The Department of Fisheries and Oceans are unable to
effectively control the illegal sales of FSC salmon,” it states. “A
major change is needed in fisheries laws to effectively deal with the
commercial processing and storage of FSC fish.”

Another document,
recording a meeting of DFO enforcement officers in April, 2010, states
that “97 per cent of FSC harvest in LFR [Lower Fraser River] is thought
to be sold.”

Scott Coultish, regional chief of DFO’s Intelligence
and Investigation Services, said in testimony the estimate was based on
the personal comments of field officers, not from any research. But he
felt it was accurate.

Each year, bands are allocated a catch of
salmon to cover their food, social and ceremonial needs. Some years,
when there is a surplus of fish, they are also allowed “economic
opportunity” catches, which can be sold. In 2005, only 5,500 sockeye
were caught in the native EO fishery on the Fraser.

Mr. Coultish
said the 345,000 sockeye in cold storage plants in the Lower Mainland
and on Vancouver Island were registered to individuals and companies.
The fish, which were legally stored, were flash frozen, or smoked and in
vacuum packaging.

“Most or all of this was consistent with what
you would see for commercial fish,” he said. “This product was simply
not for food, societal and ceremonial use.”

Randy Nelson, DFO’s
director of conservation and protection on the Pacific coast, told the
commission his department didn’t have the resources to follow up on the
find, and he doubted they would in the future because he has been told
significant cutbacks are coming.

In an interview outside the
hearings, Ernie Crey, a fisheries adviser for the Sto:lo Nation, which
fishes on the Lower Fraser, rejected the implications of the testimony
of the two DFO officials.

He said 950,000 FSC sockeye were caught
by native communities in the Fraser in 2005, and because the season was
short and intense, a large number of fish arrived quickly and went into
commercial freezers.

“About one third of our fish were in cold storage. This would not be unusual,” he said.

Mr. Crey said salmon are served at almost every ceremony.

“If
a member of my community passes away, you’d get 250 to 1,000 people
attending the funeral. Fish would be served. It’s the same at weddings,
birthdays. … And that’s a lot of fish,” he said.

About 40,000
aboriginal people live in Metro Vancouver and about 15,000 are in the
Fraser Valley. It’s not clear how many of them get FSC salmon.

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