Sockeye run was too little, too late!

The recent fishing opening, created by political pressure from City Hall, the MLA’s office and local labour, didn’t do much for the bottom line of the fishermen or the shoreworkers that it was supposed to help.

Despite the last minute reversal of field by DFO and the Ministry of the Environment, in the end the surge of sockeye proved to be a run that was too little and too late to do much to change the dynamic of the local fishery for this year.

At the time of the controversy it was said that potentially hundreds of thousands of dollars were liable to go swimming away from the city, in the end with the opening granted a more modest 26,000 dollars was added to the local economy on the strength of the opening.

That means that shoreworkers are still facing a long hard winter, as they come up short of the required hours for Employment Insurance and fishermen still are finding it harder and harder to make a go of things in a changing industry.

The one good thing taken from the events of the last week or so is that, for one of the few times in recent memory the folks at DFO accepted the concerns of the local stakeholders and changed a decision that hadn’t made much sense to anyone. Perhaps it’s something that can be built upon to try and ensure the viability of the fishing industry on the North Coast.

As for the recent opening and all the excitement that it brought forward to the local scene, as they say any publicity is good publicity and all of those involved got their messages across, hopefully in the long run it will be more than just the words that we remember.

The Daily News had the full details on the outcome of the recent controversy and where the industries future may lie.

MASSIVE SOCKEYE RUN FAILS TO MAKE A BIG DIFFERENCE
By Leanne Ritchie
The Daily News
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Pages One, Two and Five

The commercial access fishermen gained to an unusually abundant sockeye fishery last week ended up being too little to late, said Coun. Joy Thorkelson. But at the same time, she said it was well worth having council cast their nets into the political fray.

“I want to report there was around 5,200 fish caught in the two day gill net fish opening we had and probably less than 1,000 fish caught by the seiners in the opening they had,” she said. Thorkelson, who is also the northern representative for the United Fishermen and Allied Workers Union.

Council, through Thorkelson and Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond, lobbied the provincial and federal governments to raise the bycatch limit on steelhead in order to allow the commercial fleet access to the run.

Although they had precious little time to make their plea as sockeye were running up the river, Pond traveled to Vancouver and spent time in front of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) office to remind the agency that the indecision of both the province and the federal governments was costing local communities.

“It was 6,000 pieces of fish landed, which brings us $26,000 to our communities in prices paid to fishermen and of course there was a small amount of shoreworking that went along with that,” said Thorkelson.

“Even though we only landed 5,200 pieces, it could have been 52,000 pieces we didn’t know.”

And even though it seemed like it was trying to move a mountain, in my opinion it was worthwhile.”

In her lengthy experience in the fishing industry, this was only the third time when the commercial fleet has seen the fisheries department change its mind on an issue, she said.

“Every one of those three times has been when city council has been involved in that process and has lobbied on behalf of the workers and fishermen,” she said.

Overall, it has not been a great season for the fleet, but that has nothing to do with the size of the runs, said Thorkelson.

“The fishing plan said we should catch 41 per cent of the run and we only caught 27 per cent of the run because the fishing plan had some other things built into it which were inflexible,” she said.

“We only caught just over 900,000 Skeena fish and we should have caught 1.4 million. We were 500,000 fish short, according to the fisheries plan, and that was to our community $2.4 million lost.”

This loss is estimated at $1 per pound, which was the lowest price paid for fish this year, she explained.

“And of course 500,000 fish is a hell of a lot of fish to put through the fish plants and we probably would have got some people close to qualifying (for Employment Insurance)” she said.

Shoreworkers are looking at a hard winter because a lack of work has left many far short of qualifying for Employment Insurance benefits.

She added it was a strange year, and it would have helped had fisheries been more flexible to accommodate some of the unusual factors. The city, which has an interest in seeing the fleet bring as much money into the economy as possible, could help lobby for more flexibility in the fisheries plan, she said.

Currently, communities on the West Coast have no input into the Integrated Fisheries Management Plan, which lays out fisheries plans for the season.

“On this coast, communities are excluded from input into fisheries management yet on the East Coast, they are included,” she said.

Only First Nations, sport, commercial and provincial interests are included in B. C.

“If they are not going to include us, maybe we should include them, it’s just a suggestion,” Thorkelson said, as she requested council invite fisheries managers to talk to council about this year and next year’s plans.

Prince Rupert Mayor Herb Pond agreed they should continue to bring the community’s interests forward.

“The interest at this table is the overall impact on the community and the money that could have been circulated in the community… and would still be seen in businesses up until Christmas,” he said, of the lost $2.4 million.

“That’s our unique interest as the city that’s different from everyone else at the table,”