Tag Archives: Indigenous fishing rights

Tofino Harbour Authority shuts office due to standoff with long-standing float home residents

By Nora O’Malley, Ha-Shilth-Sa, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Tofino, BC – Locked security gates are coming to some of Tofino’s docks, according to the harbour authority’s manager, an inconvenient safety measure that has resulted from liability concerns over float homes at the harbour.

The Fourth Street Dock will remain “fully accessible”, according to the District of Tofino, but a different situation is expected at the Crab Dock, where a dispute has been brewing over people living on a floating home.

Continue reading Tofino Harbour Authority shuts office due to standoff with long-standing float home residents

Fishing communities welcome B.C. intention to reform licensing and quotas

Editor’s note: Fishing was one of Cortes Island’s major industries. The museum records the names of 28 boats and 40 individuals active during the 1970’s. Government regulations changed that. According to  the study SET ADRIFT: THE PLIGHT OF BRITISH COLUMBIA’S FISHING COMMUNITIES, 71% of the people working in the province’s commercial fishing industry lost their jobs. “What remains in the commercial fishery is not a vibrant and healthy fleet, but a fleet ravaged by consolidation.” DFO licensing practises “diverted the fish away from the populous small-boat fleet and delivered the resource into the hands of a venture capitalist…”

By Hope Lompe,  Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Fishing communities, harvesters and advocates are welcoming British Columbia’s intention to work with the federal government to reform the purchase system for fish licences and quotas for B.C.’s commercial fishing industry.

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Fish fight over West Coast licences and quota resurfaces at federal committee

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A parliamentary committee investigating whether corporations and foreign owners have a stranglehold on Canadian fisheries is experiencing a serious case of deja vu. 

Witnesses speaking about the dire straits faced by commercial fish harvesters and coastal communities on the West Coast are raising the same issues first presented to the Standing Committee of Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO) starting in 2018

Continue reading Fish fight over West Coast licences and quota resurfaces at federal committee

First Nations Call Canadian Government Fishing Practises Discriminatory

Campbell River Mirror, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Five western Vancouver Island First Nations have called on the federal government to take “meaningful action” and “redirect” surplus allocation of chinook salmon to their communities. 

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