EDITORS NOTE: The following article was submitted as a Letter to the Editor, but required some collaboration in presenting it.
The article/letter that I did not want to write, yet its become critical to opening a much needed conversation where one side cannot bully the other side into silence. Having grown up with members of the Gitxsan as members of my family, there were always two groups that were predominate, gangsters, tough guys, bullies and on the other side gentlemen, men and women who were class acts, and in my books, the gangsters took over the sandbox, and it should not reflect on the people, the Gitxsan people, but rather those who claim to be speaking for the people. Those who are speaking were never elected, they were not chosen by the Gitxsan people, they are self appointed.
First some logistics, those families living on reserves are members of one of six communities, small villages, each having their own elected band council. The Gitxsan people are a matrilineal society that consists of Frog, Eagle, Wolf, and Fireweed Clans. Each clan consists of a series of independent Houses (Wilp), each with their own High Chief, and traditional territories and fishing sites. Marriage within a clan is forbidden. There are approximately 64 wilps (also known as houses or families) now keep in mind that its almost without exception, that its the same dozen (or less) non elected Hereditary Chiefs stirring the pot/sandbox and making clams the represent all 64 wilps. Again I say this and they are free to challenge what I have said, but they do not represent the majority of the Gitxsan Nation and you can be certain they would hotly appose asking the Gitxsan Nation to vote on these issues. Do the math, 11 Hereditary Chiefs out of 64 is a minority, not a majority, many times the number is even lower than 11, claiming to speak for the Gitxsan Nation, but without anyone challenging them they can say anything they want, regardless of how ridiculous the claims might be, yet they speak as if they speak for all 64 wilps. They won’t even risk a vote among the 64 Hereditary Chiefs, let alone have the people themselves speak to the subject. I have personally spoken with members of the Kispiox community, Kitwanga community and Kitsegeucla community who disagree with these chiefs, but do not dare to challenge them as this would result in serious repercussions for them. Imagine living in fear of Hereditary Chiefs.
In regards to our cover image, deceit seems to be the order of the day, lies can be told, truth becomes the victim of capitalist greed. Imagine saying “Government of BC Withdraws Participation On Fishing Crisis Talks, Perpetuating Cultural Genocide” Comments like that are cold calculated abuse by people who put greed ahead of justice, people who feel extortion is the best method to advancement. Worse than that is that many aboriginals end up supporting these rebels, when their misplaced trust is being abused by some modern day chiefs. This is not reconciliation, this is extortion aimed at citizens of other nations to solicit pressure by deceit. Nothing good ever comes from deceiving others for personal gain. I also want to point out that many of the chiefs involved with this verbal bashing are much younger than I am, they definitely are not the old stock local aboriginals that I grew up with in Kispiox, Hazelton and Kitwanga. Many chiefs now passed on did sports fishing for fun, so the claim made here sounds mighty erroneous to me. These modern day chiefs are inventing rules on the fly, it defiles the old traditions when you can no longer know if its an age old rule or a modern day manipulation of historical facts.
These are the same fine chiefs that “Gitxsan Hereditary Chiefs evict BC NDP MLA Nathan Cullen from his Hazelton constituency office on Gitxsan territory” Where these same chiefs defend the criminal actions of Gitxsan members on Wet’suwet’en territory. The gall is unprecedented and it does nothing to advance the best intrests of aboriginals in our region, all this being goaded on by the Eco Cult movement only to happy to fund these fights.
The truth is here (Exel file). for many years there were salmon runs that were much lower than they have been in the past decade, there is NO new crisis, its a repeat of previous bad years. in those years the DFO did not close the river and open them to aboriginal fishing, they were open to all user groups. The second point is that the Gitxsan never had as many issues, or privileges as they do today, many areas open to the public are closed today due to pressure by modern day elders, the kids from yesterday, who are a lot more disrespectful than their parents or grand parents were. The elders of the past were respected by all locals, not so much today with the radical chiefs. Today’s chiefs are modern day capitalists taking advantage of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP). Nobody says it better than Ellis Ross, MLA Skeena. Does UNDRIP truly serve First Nations’ best interests? (w/ Ellis Ross, MLA Skeena) To better understand the article below, this interview by a First Nations leader is a must see video. Ellis proves that UNDRIP is bad for both First Nations and Canada. Its critical that those who want to understand the problem being created by radical chiefs, is hurting everyone, not just non aboriginals, but its hurting even their own people. This problem is being promoted by ignorance of the facts, greed and Eco Cultists like the Tides Foundation.
Welcome back, I do hope you did watch the entire video, as it shows the difference between progressive moves forward, or radical steps backward.
There is a lot that needs to be said, I want to steal a term used in social media that describes relationships, in particular a description of the relationship between aboriginals and those footing the bills of reconciliation. I am all in favor of protecting the rights of any small fraction of society, there is a difference between rights and racial privilege. Not because they are indigenous, and also not because bureaucrats from other nations want to handicap Canada, the USA, and Australia, as they feel that by crippling our countries they will do better in the world. The mentality of bringing others down to lift yourself up is in play here. Our relationship with aboriginals should not be a political football, they are our neighbours, they are our brothers and sisters, however thanks to political interference, we went from a very cooperative and supportive relationship, to one where greed and malice seems to now run deep. So it would be a fair assessment to call the relationship as “It’s Complicated.”
Also it should be very clear that this is a problem created within specific aboriginal groups, that in fact the majority of aboriginal nations have moved forward in a mature and intellectual manner, it would be wrong to cast them all into the same melting pot with the radical groups.
Much of what I am saying here, is not because I feel I am an authority on the subject, but rather what I say reflects what many aboriginals need to know as per what so many local people are saying behind their backs as saying it to their face, always gets a racism flag. If you cannot tell people respectfully to their face, you drive them to talk to people they feel are safe to have a conversation with. Just because you are not hearing what people are saying, does not mean they approve, or that they don’t care, they do, they are just tired of wasting time telling people who refuse to listen. All you need to do is look at where Taylor Bachrach sits in the polls in our riding to know that silence is the handed down verdict for what the NDP have done to our communities.
There also seems to be a consensus that all of the trouble comes from the same dozen or so aboriginal people, goaded on my the same people who are funded by the American Tides Foundation, locally known as Skeena Wild, the Sierra Club and their connection inside the local NDP organizations. They are not legitimate environmentalist groups they are environmental cultists. Check here for a much larger list and look at how many are local to our region. They use cash to solicit aboriginal attacks on both Canadian and provincial establishments, and they care little about the lives they destroy in the process. (There is ample evidence to support this claim Foreign Political Interference in Skeena—Bulkley Valley for anyone wishing to verify this.) There are literally hundreds of instances where local organizations are funded by the Eco Cult outside of Canada, but the press prefers the bloody nose story over the truth.
If facts bother you then I suggest you stop reading right here and google Disney World and stay there.
Point of clarification, when I am saying a minority group in reference to aboriginals, one must understand that its a tiny fraction of radicals, the same people over and over, causing all the disturbances attributed to aboriginal nations. Look at the numbers, then look who is creating all the fuss, and it becomes quite clear they are not elected, they are not representing aboriginals, they are simply the loudest and rudest among them. Recall the 2020’s Shut Down Canada blockades, a call from the criminals hunkered down at 44k on the Morice Logging road trying to kill the CGL Pipeline project? That was the American organization called 350.org. Do some homework and those arrested are the same people behind this new Gitxsan fishing ban. They are the same foreign funded aboriginals that are shutting down the forest industry, they are the same foreign funded individuals trying to shut down the new Ksi Lisims LNG project. The law needs to be changed, all money transferred for environmentalism should require full public disclosure, that would solve the problem.
* “4.8 percent of BC’s total population) identified themselves as Aboriginal” (The real number of pure aboriginals is much lower) We know that even those who are 1/10th aboriginal or have a relative in the family identify as aboriginal.
* “sixty percent of the Aboriginal population in BC lived in urban areas” This mean 60 percent of aboriginals have chosen to live in cities, not traditional living by any means.
* “14 percent lived in rural BC, and just over a quarter lived on reserves.” That in itself is quite staggering, somehow the press and the governments keep these stats well buried from conversations. Consider that all the trouble comes from the tiny faction living on reserves, they are neither chiefs or elected representatives. Most of the agitators never even served their own communities in any mutually beneficial capacity, they are simply hard core shit disturbers, goaded on by the eco cult movement.
* “Nearly half (46 percent) of the off-reserve Aboriginal population was less than 25 years of age,” Keep these stats in mind when you hear these edicts handed down by so called aboriginal figures of authority. Almost without exception the primary instigators of lawlessness are from the same reserve and have ties to the same aboriginal nation.
Again I want to reiterate, what was done long before most of us were born to aboriginals was wrong, and we need to recognize those wrongs, however I draw the line at suggesting we pay today’s kids for what people did to their ancestors by people that were likely not even our ancestors. Both the victims and their tormentors are dead, so its time to move on, its time to recognize what happened and at the same lime learn to live together as opposed to living off of histories atrocities. We need to address and publicly apologize as a nation, but those living today are not responsible for what people did before we were born. People all over this planet called earth were mistreated by powerful nations of the past, its called history and we should simply learn from it and not consider these crimes as a cash card that lasts forever.
The strategy by these criminals is telling others about the hurt points “victims of racism, abuse, residential schools” then use these painful points to justify criminal actions, or defiance against law and order, without ever replacing protection against criminals in their own communities, they even did their best to solicit “black lives matter” support, not because they care, but they were trying to get the black community to support the radicals.
The first thing aboriginals need to understand is that leadership is the most powerful way of raising up their own nation, and do so best by leading by example. One of the best things happening today is aboriginals getting into politics, and promoting lifting everyone up, not by aboriginal DNA alone, but including everyone living here.
So bear with me as I take you through a number of need to be said points.
One of the primary barriers in resolving racism, land claims, injustices of the past, is the management of the “artillery words” allowed or disallowed in this debate. How can you ever have a relationship, when one side calls everything said that does not fit the other sides wants and desires by labelling those speaking as “colonialist mentality, racist, white privilege, apples” and the list goes on but these are examples. This is not a relationship or partnership, its not even negotiation, its simply bully tactics by individuals who think talking tough is masculine, and then pretend they do not know where violence against women comes from. You cannot condone violence than claim to be victims, like in the red dress campaign, as a number of highly respected hereditary chiefs have said, our nations suffer from alcohol and violence on the inside. Its time to stop pointing fingers and start deal with the real source of the problem, I know how angry some people get when they are reminded of this by a non aboriginal, but someone needs to address the elephant in the room. Too many radical aboriginals are using these problems then pointing at colonials as the reason they suffer, its an excuse, its a cover for their own radical ideologies. Many of them are so niave they think they can dismantle the Goverment of Canada and take control of it themselves.
Fact is most aboriginal people are thriving and enjoying the benefits brought to Canada by the so called colonials. Why else would 60% of aboriginals in British Columbia be living in the city, with most of those being under 25 years of age? Almost every aspect of living today, from the cloths on your back to the food you eat, where you get your food is other than the fish or wildlife you eat are 100% dependant on colonial living. Even the fish you harvest from rivers and ocean, and wildlife you eat are 100% obtained using colonial gear and equipment. Then there are those who can fish, and store so much in the freezer, also products of colonialism. Everything from the medical services, communications, social media, entertainment (imagine life without hockey or baseball or football) aboriginals are part of the future and need to be part of the whole community. Stop pretending that you need privileges as a means of survival, and when you say traditional right, then uses quads, nylon nets, jet boats, then sell the proceeds under the table to local committees, serves nothing more than social imbalance and generates race hate. If you need ceremonial food, then only ever use it as ceremonial food, and not a licence to harvest to raise money for drugs and alcohol, or anything else that is a product of colonialism.
Face it you cannot live in the past, and you are 100% dependant on sharing the benefits of colonialism.
Now I need to interject something, that word “colonialism” was always intended to be used as a racist slur, an attack on federal and provincial authorities, an excuse to break the law, seriously is time to stop ducking behind words used specifically to slander the very people who you are now dependant on. We all have problems, race and origin have nothing to do with it, its human nature.
Canada has not been a colonial nation for 157 years! Get over your obsession with calling us a colonial nation.
Canada has not been a colonial nation, not even when your mom and dad were still in diapers so quit this nonsense about how we Canadians are colonials, that’s just intentional slander by mealy mouthed hoodlums!
We cannot continue to allow negotiations over land clam issues to become what they have become today, negotiating with the lawless is just one more NDP method of divide to conquer. There is already a civilized process in place, however the NDP have allowed and tolerated the ransom method using the “we will end our extremist approach in exchange for” in place of the civilized method.
We cannot tolerate a small extremist faction of aboriginals to do millions of dollars in damages, then claim they did it because of residential schools. Don’t get me wrong, there were many injustices directed at the aboriginals of Canada, but we need to end this mentality that allows kids today to break the law, because they read, or heard on TV that one or more of their ancestors faced injustice. If you have an issue, bring to to the table like a mature adult, stop using drugs and alcohol and blaming it on “whites.” The attack on whites is merely a ways and means to get all non white people on board with an attempt to overthrow the current elected system.
My quick two bits worth on residential schools, look at the cash that was stolen from Canadians in the name of all the dead, missing and buried children, that to this date have shown to be nothing more than a mirage, but it was milked and milked over and over again, untill the cow dried up, without a single shred of evidence to back it up. Again we the people paying for something we never did.
The primary contributing factor to all the upheaval facing our society today falls directly on our existing political leadership. every time the radicals cost society, or cost civilization money with illegal antics, the first to offer them money to shut them up is our NDP leadership, we saw it when
The Lake Babine Band did not even want to share the sockeye they were harvesting with locals wanting to drive over 60 kilometres of rough dirt road to try catch 2 sockeye salmon to bring home to their dinner table, dog food for cash was much more important. Now I will add something that is hearsay, as I have no proof its true, but someone out there should know. I was told that these fish sales were done not by the band but by certain members of the band and the elders living at Fort Babine were left out in the cold without any benefit. See what happens when you hide the truth? We end up posting what we hear via the grape vine. This kind of injustice needs to end unless the object is to create race hate by some for political advantage.
Before I continue I want to make something very clear, the DFO our Federal Fisheries did not issue a closure on salmon fishing, Nathan Cullen has no ability to issue a salmon closure either, however by keeping sport fisherman out of the park, he effectively made it impossible for sport fisherman who had the legal right to fish there, he chose the option of interference against non aboriginals wishing to fish there. Its not possible that he did not know that they had a contract to sell the sockeye, harvested using our counting fence.
Making matters worse was the inability of users and user groups from saying anything at all, or risk being labelled racist colonials. We have come down to their unwritten code of shut up and play along. We need open dialog, not diatribe by people who are hostile and greedy, who care nothing about the community as a whole. The whole issue of aboriginal rights has fallen into the hands of individuals who demand with a vengeance, and feel they can rightfully bulldoze their way into a submission by Canadian and provincial authorities, we see it time and time again, I don’t personally like Nathan Cullen but he is your/our elected representative for British Columbia, those who evicted his office have shown they do not have the capacity to represent their own people. Sort of like allowing inmates to run the asylum.
More than ever the hostilities shown over the past few years by the Gitxsan are undeniable proof that the Hereditary Chief governance is a total failure, and proof that only an elected body, one where every member of the Gitxsan community gets to decide based on a persons merits if they fit the position to speak for their people. Clearly buying your way into being the head Chief has proven to be a total failure, one fraught with greed and power. Those who claim that band counsels are working for goverment, are either too stupid to be speaking, or have never taken the time to investigate just how local band counsels really are.
Before I go on, I wish to clear the air about my own colonial roots. I have two children, both have 50% aboriginal blood, refine that a bit more and I can say they have a Gitzsan heritage as well as a European one. They both work for a living, they did not or do not live off the benefits provided to them using a status card. They did not suddenly become only Gitxsan, despite being 50% aboriginal. They both work for, and pay taxes as Canadian citizens and want no part of a genetic privilege card that the United Nations uses to keep society divided. The reason I explain this to you is to insure you understand as the writer of this article, racism is not part of any family, racism is a means to divide and conquer, we want no part of it.
I am no longer a young man, by every aboriginal definition I am fully qualified to be called an elder, I have lived here almost 3 times as long as young punks using as a battle cry “we were here first” let me be blunt, like hell you were, my parents did not earn our living for us, they taught us that people who do not work for what they have, have almost no appreciation for what they have. I worked and I enjoyed the benefits of living in a very beautiful province that we call British Columbia. In our family we always helped those in need, not just aboriginal, need does not require a racial identification. We grew up, no welfare, no free housing, not free food, no hunting privileges based on race, no fishing privileges based on race. I fished side by side with Gitxsan members in Kispiox, only to have it closed to us based on racist privilege, I fished in Kitwanga side by side with some Gitxsan members (again to see it closed based on racial privilege) local Gitxsan who became life long best friends. Many of them have now passed on and the next generation became the most racist generation I have ever known. They do not care about elders other than their own, they are so full of hate it spills out of them when you go there. This is new, and its bad, it needs to end, how do you expect respect when you do not respect others?
The order came from people we knew were real race haters and activists who closed the river to non aboriginals, only to have the band office say wait a minute, individual members cannot just make up new rules so it was overturned. As time went by they complained to the DFO who did their dirty work for them by permanently closing part of the Skeena to non aboriginals. Before I leave this subject, there are more “its complicated” twists in the history. Somehow they invented (BC Goverment and the DFO) a new category of Canadian waters and labelled it as traditional fishing grounds without having the decency to advise or consult with the public first. But that issue, giving away Canadian rights and privileges has become a theme with the provincial NDP.
Non aboriginals cannot buy any other licence than one labelled “Freshwater fishing licences” in over 60 years of sport fishing, I have only ever fished for food, just as I did when I went hunting, there was never at any time in my life when I played with fish. Now here is where I will not mince words, that Gitxsan claiming non aboriginals are playing with food, is a selfish young punk, intentionally doing his best to infuriate the very same people that helped make Gitxsan land claims possible. My God, how short the memories are among the greedy!
Many years ago Nathan Cullen and his cohorts at the Sierra Club BC, Skeenawild Conservation Trust, Skeena Watershed Conservation Coalition, just to name a few, warned us that an oil pipeline would wipe out all our salmon stocks, and we would not be able to eat the money (recall those slogans?) Well even without the pipelines oil, they wiped out all our salmon anyways, now we have no pipeline or salmon, Good God who would have dreamed they would be so right? We did not even need the pipeline to wipe out all our salmon stocks and they are heading for extinction. Recall the fable “The Little Boy Who Cried Wolf?” All the villagers came out to help, well in a local twist so did all the communities from the Queen Charlotte’s to Prince Rupert, through to Prince George, we all came out, especially the local sports fishermen/women, we were all of firm resolve to stand behind, with or in front of our aboriginal neighbours to end this nightmare that would kill off all our salmon.
Well boys and girls, men and ladies, we were duped, we lost our salmon and the first people to stab the sport fishing industry in the back was the same Gitxsan who they supported in the fight against the Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline. Hey folks it does not end here, we were duped, the tanker ban did not apply to any tankers other than those the pipeline would load. And to date hundreds of thousands of passes, and not one spill to date. This was Nathan Cullen ticket to stardom, what a joke, read about it here .Canada’s Stupid Tanker Ban – Its time for Bill C-229 at the end of the day, the very people who stood behind the Gitxsan, giving them a powerful foot at the negotiation table, ended with a knife in the back, for both locals and for Nathan himself. Was this karma coming after Nathan? The very people he built up, only to be evicted from their territory?
I do not want to get into a debate over catch and release, we are divided enough already, however I would concede that catch and release is not a good idea when stocks are in crisis, but more importantly we can work this out together, at a table, this is why we need elected officials, the unelected have a history of being bully dictators.
These Gitxsan making the claim that non aboriginals are playing with fish stocks, are ignorant of the facts and need to mature before opening his or her mouth again on a topic they know nothing about, or they are fully aware of the truth and are making these outrageous and malicious statements in order to play a foreign audience or the desperate media looking for another race hate story to promote. Locals both non aboriginal and aboriginal, Gitxsan included know the facts so why is this individual allowed to speak such malice to the press? It looks like the Gitxsan membership have lost control of their leadership to hoodlums. Your own elders played with salmon, so go back to your sandbox, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you cannot erase the memories the older generation has regarding the truth.
Forgive me for this interjection, not long ago the sockeye on the Bulkley River, headed for the Morice were listed as two species on the endangered list, yet many local people received invitations to buy these same sockeye that by DFO permission are being caught using the fish ladder created to save salmon not kill salmon.
Last year there were hundreds of dead pink salmon floating down the Skeena River, we asked the DFO if we could take them in place of killing more pinks, they said no, we would be charged for possession of aboriginal food fish. The Gitxsan were keeping the sockeye and throwing the dead pinks back into the river. Then they have the gall to talk about colonials playing with fish. If you wish to document abuse, there is a ton of it, nets full of rotting salmon and steelhead, here we are limited at time to zero sockeye, other times two a day, and watch Gitxsan float by with jet riverboats and gill nets, catching everything in their path as they drift down the river, all the while calling it their traditional right. The pinks are trashed, maybe a bear will get lucky.
This abuse needs to end, or simply kill off the remaining salmon so we have nothing to fight over. We have so many “Save the Salmon” groups, yet none of them have the guts to take on the real problem, they are deathly afraid to take on aboriginals in regards to net fishing, not dip nets but massive commercial nylon nets, so they find hundreds of excuses for salmon stock depletion, but heaven forbid don’t you dare mention gill nets in the river. If you are serious about saving salmon, the only real solution is banning all nets, not just gill nets from the Skeena River. (Or even the Nass River) There is nothing TRADITIONAL about these nets, they are the product of colonialism, commercial ocean fishing.
This person (Gitxsan) who made those comments “playing with salmon” possibly did so for two reasons, the first being malice, as he knew full well we are limited to a few salmon per day while “Gitxsan” can harvest to the point of wholesale slaughter of salmon, and sell it as dogfood, not even for human consumption. The stupid DFO allow aboriginals to harvest to the point of extinction, under the false premise of ceremonial food. The problem lies in the fact that the DFO gives them the right to harvest for ceremonial purposes and it becomes the blank check with nobody checking how many fish, or what its actually used for. How can they be allowed to be so stupid, a blank check to harvest salmon, while denying the very citizens that bankroll your paychecks? Using gill nets in a river is an insurance policy that will insure extinction, its not sports fisherman that are a threat here, its these bloody gill nets. Sports fisherman catch a few salmon a day, gill nets are wiping out thousands of salmon per day, many of these groups of salmon are the only salmon going up smaller streams, so little by little they are killing our rivers and streams.
Then they have the gall to suggest sport fishing is a threat? Again I say the lunatics are running the asylum., and the DFO is far to spineless to deal with it because of the politics involved with genetic privilege using the race card.
The problem with the DFO is leadership, there is none. The DFO are guided by two words “reconciliation and UNDRP” between those two words conservation is no longer important, what is important is the Liberals need to get re-elected, and who gives a rats ass about fish stocks? History has proven time and again, the Federal Goverment is not capable on fish management, they have only one interest, its political election management. Its why the east coast also has a massive mess instead of management. The DFO needs to be dismantled and the power should go to the people who live with the fish, in BC that would mean the people, there should be management areas set up by rivers as well, and all parties should sit at that table. But good luck with that, by the time that happens I will be somewhere else in the universe.
Very very little of what is harvested on the Skeena River is ever used to ceremonial purposes, the false claim that they inherited the right to sell and barter fish was part of their way of life, if true at all it was never done with quads, riverboats, nets, and selling it did not include using the cash for trucks, cars, gas, cannabis, alcohol, McDonald’s Food, or any other fast foods, or groceries. Face it the reality is they have become one with the so called colonials, they cannot live the lifestyle they talk about, they can only live the same way the rest of us do, they have become one with us, and the sooner elected officials get on board the sooner the pain comes to an end.
If I am wrong, and I have at times been wrong, how come 60% of aboriginal youth are leaving the reserves and heading for city life? Seriously they would not be leaving if they felt that it was the lifestyle they preferred. They are leaving for good reason, no future, nothing to do, and no hope.
Good Lord can you imagine any Gitxsan under the age of forty, without a cellphone and social media? If there are any, congratulations, you deserve a medal, in fairness they don’t differ much from everyone who is non aboriginal, the world would come to an end if cellphones and internet went dead. Somehow all of these facts fly over the heads of these cultist like Gitxsan, who are hell bent on a free ride for life. I am not talking about the general population, once again I am referring to that dozen or so linked with the eco cult movement, chiefs included.
Do not get me wrong, at no point am I or will I ever suggest that aboriginals should go back to primitive living. I would agree that our goverment is largely at fault for its horrid mismanagement of the fish sticks, both federal and provincial. We need a new system, one that separates non aboriginal Canadians from two other non aboriginal user groups, that being the commercial fishery, and that of the sport fishery, that has become more a commercial fishery than a sport or food fishery. We need a non aboriginal food fishing category, its time we end this slander and abuse by both Gitxsan radicals and elected hoodlums who care nothing about non aboriginals in our part of the province.
BC Residents need a food fishing licence to replace what many use as a catch and release sport fishing licence. Let me repeat what I said before, in over 50 years of fishing the Skeena I have never fished for sport, I fished for food and was forced to buy a steelhead tag, that was a result of goverment yielding to commercial sport fisherman called guides and outfitters. In fairness I have released steelhead as I would not have harvested them even if it was permitted. But that’s my own choice, this topic needs to be addressed locally by all parties involved.
On the issue of risk to salmon stocks, the decisions should never be allowed to be race based. “PERIOD” However the DFO is doing exactly that, their very public statement puts aboriginal ceremonial use ahead of fish for your dinner table if you are not aboriginal, this is wrong and needs to end. I am fully aware of the Sparrow Supreme Court of Canada decision, and disagee with it, it needs to be overturned. The reality is life moves forward, time never stand still, its no longer 1991 and the rivers and oceans cannot sustain the burden of that decision. This is where the court is driving salmon stocks into extinction.
Now as most local residents, in particular the old or long timers of this region, we do read what the local papers are printing. Most recently we read. “The Gitxsan Nation has issued a fishing ban notice for the 2024 season, but provincial Ministry of Water, Land and Natural Resource Stewardship (WLNRS) rejects the notice.” Now correct me if I am wrong but was it not the same NDP Nathan Cullen who was evicted by this same group of Gitxsan chiefs?
And again correct me if I am wrong but was it not the same chiefs who “After 136 years of police violence, Gitxsan leaders want an overhaul of the RCMP” and “Gitxsan hereditary chiefs ban the RCMP’s “community-industry response group” (CIRG) from their territories” Granted its only my opinion but this to me borders absurd, they want the right to behave as criminals, and expect the rest of us in society to support these absurd demands?
**This article was copied with permission from its original author.**
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