A WAY OF LIFE IN DANGER
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ALERT BAY – Four hundred people packed the community hall in Alert Bay. They had come from Sointula, Port McNeill and Port Hardy to this small northern Vancouver Island fishing village in the hope to save their way of life, and with it, their only means to make a living.
They were angry and hurt, and they were calling for federal Fisheries Minister Fred Mifflin’s head on a platter.
B.C. Fisheries Minister Corky Evans had called the meeting, to be followed by similar protest gatherings in other communities, in a last-ditch attempt to convince Mifflin that a vote on the controversial fishing licence stacking plan was essential.
It was not to be. That same evening, Mifflin met with Evans and told him that licence stacking, which requires to have more than one licence to fish in different areas, would go ahead.
As a peace offering, Mifflin announced a $35,000 program that is to help people and communities hurt by the fishing fleet reduction that will result from the sale and stacking of licences.
There’s a chance Mifflin will allow fishers to vote on the stacking issue in fall, after the next fishing season. That’s got to be the first time a vote on whether to close the barn door will have been scheduled for after the horses are not only allowed but encouraged to bolt.
It is estimated that at least 200 licences, perhaps as many as 400 will change hands. Those who can’t afford to buy additional licences will sell and give up fishing. Those who are willing to go into debt will acquire additional licences, which are expected to go for at minimum of $100,000 each.
The main beneficiaries will be the banks. They will finance the licence purchases and take the cream off the next fishing crop.
It is also doubtful whether the stacking of licences and fleet reduction will result in a lower catch, which is the ultimate aim of the exercise, because most licences will probably be bought by owners of more high-tech boats, able to catch more fish than the ones who sold the licences.
In the end, we will see a repetition of what happened in the forest industry, where most cutting licences were originally held by small operators, who eventually sold out to bigger operators, who finally sold out to the very big forest companies.
And when it’s all done, it will be too late. A way of life for small independent fishers will be lost forever, and with it the most important resource – intimate knowledge of the industry at the community level.
Native leaders in Alert Bay warned that if the federal government goes ahead with stacking, natives in British Columbia’s fishing communities will be condemned to a life of destitution and welfare, because they don’t have the education and skills to make a living anywhere else or in any other industry.
There is no disagreement between stakeholders, including fishers, environmentalists and politicians, both federal and provincial, that it is necessary to reduce the size of the annual catch.
The problem is that the federal government, specifically the Department of Fisheries, is least qualified to oversee the operation. Under their guidance, the east coast cod fishery collapsed.
The best thing that could happen would be for Ottawa to bow out of the jurisdiction for fishery and let us handle it.
Evans got a standing ovation from the protesters in Alert bay when he told them that the provincial government had for too long stood at the sidelines but was in the scrap for good and would never again walk away from it.
If only Mifflin and his boss saw it that way.
THIS IS OLD HAT FOR NORTHERN B.C.
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By HUBERT BEYER
VICTORIA – Most of my readers live in northern and central British Columbia, and for as long as I have been writing this column for them – going on 15 years now – I have made one point, over and over again:
People in southern British Columbia haven’t got a clue what goes on north of Hope. And that includes most of our politicians. Well, between Christmas and New Year, they found out, the hard way.
Victoria, that balmy city of year-round golfing, of leisurely walks along the ocean, of flowering trees in January, got hit by a blizzard that would have done Winnipeg proud.
Folks in Fort Nelson, Golden, Williams Lake and Quesnel must have had a laughing fit when television news coverage brought them images of the capital city gripped in the most ferocious snow storm in 80 years.
And believe me, it was a beauty. I’ve gone though countless blizzards in Winnipeg. This one could hold its own. In just a couple of days, mother nature dumped 124 centimetres of snow on Victoria.
For one brief week, the "real British Columbians," as Bill Bennett once referred to those living in the northern and central part of the province got their revenge. Just for once, Victoria and, to a lesser extent Vancouver, experienced what the rest of British Columbia endures year after year.
For several days, the city was paralyzed. Nothing moved. Public transportation was at a standstill. Airports were closed. Ferries didn’t operate. No cars could make it out of the driveways. The streets were deserted.
But there was a good side to it. Nothing brings people closer together than a shared hardship. Traditionally somewhat standoffish, Victorians rediscovered what being good neighbors is all about, nothing new to British Columbians living in harsher winter climes.
There was the wonderful story of little Megan Egilson being born at home during the worst of the blizzard, because there was no way for mother Joy to get to hospital. Neighbors had offered to shovel the driveway, but as the storm progressed, there was no way any car could make it anywhere.
While the family doctor was able to send a nurse, who lived nearby, over to the house, a family friend located a midwife who also somehow made it through the storm to the Egilson’s house.
Little Megan made her appearance without a hitch, and she’s one of the few babies who may later tell of how her umbilical cord was tied off with sterilized kite string.
The army reserve tried it best to help out, but said later it was hampered by a "lack of sufficient effective communications equipment, vehicles, winter warfare clothing and equipment, and basic filed unit stores."
Seems to me that’s just about everything an effective army ought to have. The fact that none of the Greater Victoria municipalities have any snow-clearing equipment to speak of didn’t help either.
In the end, mother nature herself repaired the havoc she had created. Rain and warmer temperatures made the snow melt rather quickly, and Victorians were able to dig out from under the worst snow storm in eight decades.
There’s still a lot of snow on the roads, but traffic is moving again. It will take a few days before grocery stores can stock up on staples again, and ICBC catches up on claims for damage to vehicles caused by backhoes and graders, but life is gradually returning to normal.
And as the last chuckles echo up north over the lesson nature taught this province’s banana belt, hope springs eternal that southern British Columbians will look with renewed respect at their northern cousins to whom all this is old hat.
THERE’S ANOTHER SIDE TO THE STORY
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VICTORIA – The recent violence at the Guru Nanak Sikh temple in Surrey is grist for the mills of those who are less than enthusiastic about the migration to Canada of about 10,000 Punjabis a year.
The incident which saw several moderate Sikhs injured by a group of militant hotheads cannot help but reinforce the views of a minority of Canadians who would keep anyone whose skin isn’t white out of Canada.
It is the stuff immigrant-bashing fodder is made of, and if you seek proof, you but have to scan the letters-to-the-editor pages in the weeks to come.
Canadians believe, and rightly so, that anyone coming to this country should leave their political and religious quarrels behind. The vast majority do, be they from Punjab, Chile, Vietnam or Ireland. Unfortunately, a few rotten apples can spoil the barrel or at least give the impression that the barrel is spoiled.
British Columbia’s Attorney General, Ujjal Dosanjh, cut short his trip to India to deal with the situation here. He’s no stranger to the strife that occasionally tears apart Sikh communities. He, too, was beaten by a bunch of militant hooligans some years back.
Differences between militant and moderate Sikhs go back a while. They reached a peak in 1984, when the Indian government unwisely used the army to storm the Golden Temple at Amritsar, where rebel leader Bhindranwale was holed up.
In the aftermath of that debacle, tempers among Sikhs here in Canada also ran high. I remember writing about the elderly father of a good friend of mine having been severely beaten by a bunch of militant Sikhs.
To properly assess the problem that arose at the Surrey temple, it must be mentioned that the fight has nothing to do with religion. At issue is an estimated $100,000 that flow into the temple coffers every year.
The rebellious faction wants that money to keep fuelling their dream of an independent Sikh state. Last year, they lost control of the temple and, therefore, the money.
The fact that chances of an independent Sikh state are nil and its proponents are leaderless doesn’t seem to deter some people. For them, I suppose, the dream never dies, and they will follow that dream forever, resorting to violence in the process.
But whatever the reason, all the public sees is an ethnic minority that doesn’t appear to integrate into Canada’s fabric. Well, they are wrong. There is another side to the story that goes unmentioned in the news coverage.
The hungry get food at Sikh temples. Sikhs believe the house of God should be open to anyone. At the Khalsa Diwan temple in Vancouver up to 5,000 people a day are being fed, and not just Sikhs. Any color, any creed is welcome.
Temples offer language classes to help new immigrants integrate better. They have seniors activities, day care centres.
The vast majority of Indo-Canadians are exemplary citizens. Yet, the public perception, formed by news coverage of flash points, is one of an ethnic group that has trouble adjusting to Canadian life.
The public’s memory of Sikhs wanting to wear turbans in the RCMP or refusing to take off their turbans in the Legion tends to overshadow the contribution they make to this country.
That contribution can bee seen on all fronts. Indo-Canadians are making their mark in business, in politics and in everyday life. And Canada as a nation is the richer for it.
As for the Surrey incident, justice will now take its course. Four people have been charged, one with attempted murder. The temple is open again, thanks to the RCMP who did an excellent mediating the dispute between the two factions.
B.C. LEADING FIGHT AGAINST CHILD POVERTY
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VICTORIA – "B.C. leads on national Child Benefit Strategy," trumpeted Human Resources Minister Dennis Streifel’s press release.
"The development of national child benefit could be the social policy landmark of the 1990s, much like medicare is considered the most important social advance of the 1960s," the blurb went on.
Let’s not get carried away, Minister. British Columbia’s child benefit program is a step in the right direction. Its the best of its kind in Canada. But it’s also the only one and a long way from eradicating child poverty, the most damnable phenomenon in our affluent society.
Under the B.C. Family Bonus program, low-income families get up to $103 a month per child. Currently, the program provides $250 million in annual support to 200,000 low-income families with dependent children. About 70,000 of these families are on welfare.
The good thing about the program is that it’s designed to reduce disincentives to work over welfare. The bad part is that there aren’t enough jobs out there to break the welfare cycle, no matter how eager welfare recipients may be to find work.
Still, Canadians appear to be ready, at long last, to seriously tackle the shameful issue of child poverty in their midst. At least, the politicians are.
Moved by the need for some convincing planks in its platform for the upcoming election, the federal Liberals seem willing to put in place a national strategy to battle child poverty. The issue was high on the agenda at last week’s meeting in Toronto of Canada’s social services ministers.
Streifel is probably right when he says British Columbia’s Family Bonus program is widely recognized as an excellent model for a national child benefit plan. As I said, it is the only program of its kind in Canada.
Other provinces have been too busy wiping out social programs to give much thought to child poverty. At least the Clark government, in spite of its budget woes, is showing serious commitment to the eradication of child poverty.
On the other hand, Clark, too, has been busy scrapping programs and laying off public servants, which will not help the province’s jobless situation.
At the Toronto meeting, Streifel urged Ottawa to "take immediate and concrete action to implement a national child benefit" and to achieve that aim, begin consultation now with the provinces and the territories.
Streifel stressed three points: a national child benefit must be affective in reducing the depth of child poverty across Canada; it must be designed to ensure that work is a better deal than welfare for families in every region of Canada, and provinces should work together to expand the agreed-upon set of national objectives and principles into specific national standard.
"We are ready to sign agreements with the federal government to launch a national child benefit, and work with the territories and other provinces to achieve a shared national vision on behalf of our children," Streifel told his counterparts.
A national program to eliminate child poverty would come none too soon. A society is measured by how it treats its minorities, its elderly and its children. And while Canada compares favorably to many other countries, there is a lot of room for improvement.
Let’s keep the pressure on our politicians to take the necessary steps to make child poverty a thing of the past.
One more thing: The last time I wrote about child poverty, I got a call from a woman who said she had no time for my bleeding-heart approach to the subject. People who can’t afford to feed their kids properly, she said, should give them up for adoption.
This time, Madam, I have no time for your cynical comments. Write a letter to the editor, if you must, signed, please, but don’t call me.
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