The Political Stream of Wild Salmon
Article adopted from "Fish Farms: Zero Tolerence", Union of BC Indian Cheifs © 2002.
Where government authorizes any activities, they have a legal duty to ensure that these activities do not abrogate or derogate Aboriginal Title or Rights.
Indigenous Nations on whose waters fish farms are located experience immediate and destructive impacts. Traditional harvesting grounds (clam beds, herring spawning grounds, etc.) as well as waters and water beds are destroyed and poisoned. In some cases, existing fish farms are anchored off of burial islands sacred to Indigenous Peoples. In all cases, fish farms were granted licences without the consultation or consent of the Indigenous Peoples who hold Title to the Lands and Waters in question.
All Indigenous Nations who rely upon marine resources or salmon have their rights jeopardized and threatened by fish farms. Chemicals and drugs from fish farms poison the flesh of salmon, diseases weaken wild stocks. Escaped farmed salmon displace wild stock from their traditional habitat.
Any threat to marine resources or salmon stocks is a direct threat to all Indigenous Nations.
The “right to fish” enjoyed by all Indigenous Peoples’ will be hollow and meaningless if there are no salmon or other fish in our oceans, rivers, lakes and streams. Without fish, there is no “right to fish”.
Fish farms move salmon away from being a natural resource which is both precious and sacred to Indigenous Nations, and turn salmon into a commodity to be manufactured. The “economic” right of Canadians to factory-produce salmon cannot override the aboriginal right to the fishery and cannot erase the relationship we’ve had with the fishery for generations. As Indigenous Nations we honour our responsibility to guard the fishery for our future generations.
Where governments authorize activities, they have the legal duty to ensure that these activities do not abrogate or derogate from Aboriginal Title and Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Fish farms, with their pollution of traditional waters and marine harvesting grounds, and the risks that they pose to wild salmon and other marine life, seriously derogate Aboriginal Title and Rights. Canadian courts have imposed strict standards on governments which seek to infringe upon Aboriginal Title and Rights.
First, the infringement must be accordance with a substantial and compelling legislative objective. Second, the infringement must be consistent with the fiduciary duty of the Crown towards Aboriginal Peoples, which includes the obligation of the Crown to consult and to provide compensation in the event of an infringement. The duty to consult where Aboriginal Title and Rights may be impacted, includes duties to:
- Consult in “good faith” with the intention of “substantially addressing the concerns of the aboriginal peoples whose lands are at issue” [Delgamuukw v. British Columbia ];
- Engage in a process which meaningfully considers and accommodates Aboriginal Peoples’ interests beyond “mere consultation”; Full consent will be necessary in certain circumstances in relation to aboriginal lands. [Delgamuukw v. British Columbia ]’;
- Ensure that the Aboriginal People are fully informed with respect to all of the proposed activities or measures. [R. v. Jack, R. v. Sampson and Elliott];
- Provide full information of the proposed measures and their impact on the Aboriginal group, and other user groups. [R. v. Jack];
- Presume the existence of Indigenous Peoples Aboriginal Title and Rights, in order to meaningfully address the concerns raised by Indigenous Peoples. [Taku River Tlingit v. Ringstad, and Haida Nation v. B.C.]
Neither Canada nor the province has undertaken any serious study about the impact that fish farms will have upon Aboriginal Title or Rights, nor taken into account the perspective of Indigenous Peoples about the impact of fish farms. At a minimum, fish farms reduce the ability of Title lands and waters to sustain Indigenous Peoples, reduce the economic benefit to Indigenous Peoples of those lands and waters, and will potentially halt or restrict any further access to the fishery through poisoning, or displacing wild marine resources.
