Issues & Community Blog - Andrew Weaver: A Climate for Hope - Page 156

The long-standing Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) policy to allow a Sac-Roe Fishery (SRF) harvest of herring eggs has always been incredibly wasteful and shortsighted. It is an industry that has triggered a cascading decline of economic, cultural and ecological well-being in B.C. The intensive reduction fishery started in the early 1930s and continued until all five major stocks collapsed in the late 1960s. Pacific herring populations recovered rapidly following a four year fishery closure but the species is prone to collapse and abundance has declined again recently, with little evidence of recovery. Using seine or purse nets to capture schools of pre-spawn herring, SRF boats can kill thousands of tonnes of fish in a matter of minutes. Of those huge catches, only the roe is removed for human consumption; the carcasses are treated as by-product and used to make feed tablets for fish farms, bait or put into garden fertilizers. As herring can spawn seven or eight times over their lifetime, this kill-fishery not only removes huge biomass from the overall herring population, but destroys their ability to reproduce in future years.

Herring captured in seine nets March 2015, photo by Ian McAllister

This fishery is systematically extirpating one of B.C.’s most important foundational and keystone species. Granted, there are many other wasteful industries in our country, but what makes this one so spectacularly so is the fact that there is a clear, effective, and sustainable alternative. It is not a new method of harvesting herring eggs, quite the opposite, it has been used along the B.C. coast for thousands of years. Herring bones that have been uncovered deep in the substrate of ancient village sites provides evidence of the long relationship between the first peoples of this coast and herring.

The Heiltsuk people today, like the countless generations before them, travel to the traditional herring spawning grounds in anticipation of the inshore herring migration. Heiltsuk families anchor logs and other flotation devices to the seabed and attach lines of hemlock branches or seaweed to them – essentially mimicking ideal herring spawn habitat. With luck, herring will see these branches and kelp fronds and choose them as a spawning location, after a few days multiple layers of eggs will coat the vegetation and the harvest can begin.

Spawn-on-kelp herring roe harvest. Kelp covered in eggs are pulled from the water on the central B.C. coast, photo by Ian McAllister

The Heiltsuk choose hemlock branches because of the needles’ flavour and medicinal benefits, but also because the natural resins provide a lot of sticky surface area for the eggs to attach themselves. Certain species of kelp are preferred over hemlock by some families, and spawn on kelp remains the main product used for export.

Hemlock branches coated with herring eggs, harvested near Bella Bella, B.C. Photo by Max Bakken

These days, as the world’s oceans are picked clean for human consumption, the words ‘sustainable fishery’ have lost their meaning. In contrast, this traditional fishery has a very small footprint. It also maximizes ecological and economic benefits as the herring get to live and continue to spawn for successive generations.

Compare this to the DFO industrial-scale kill fishery model and it becomes shameful that the Heiltsuk and other Nations have not been more supported for the long battle that they have been waging against DFO, ­ both in the courts and by active blockades on the herring grounds – to shut this unsustainable fishery down. Like the east-coast cod and so many other fisheries that have collapsed at the hands of DFO, herring stocks here are following the same path and hundreds of traditional spawning areas in the territory have gone silent.

Seine nets set to harvest herring on the B.C. central coast, photo by Ian McAllister

When the Heiltsuk fishers go out on the grounds they are bringing with them generations of experience and knowledge. The logic behind the SRF industry, however, hits a dead-end pretty quickly. One does not have to use much foresight to see that a fishery founded on the mass and unnecessary killing of future spawning populations is doomed to harvest itself into the ground. All of the hallmarks of hunter-overkill are evident with the herring fishery. More corporate control of the fishery, more technology being used with bigger boats and hi-tech sonars while the fish get smaller in size forcing more immature fish to be harvested. This not only destroys the fish with greatest lifetime spawning potential, it is not even profitable as immature fish (2-3 years old) have fragile stomach linings that burst before any roe can be harvested.

The DFO releases an annual ‘Pacific Herring Integrated Fisheries Management Plan’, which, on the surface, appears to be a comprehensive report. Reading ten years worth of these documents, however, only further convinced me that the DFO not only has a limited understanding of herring’s ecological importance, requirements, or how to safely manage them, they also don’t seem to care. Take this section of the 2004 report, for example: “At this time there is no information available on the appropriate conservation limits for the ecosystem as it pertains to the herring stocks”. It continues on to talk about harvest rates, and ends with: “Research is ongoing to better understand these ecosystem processes and the role herring plays in maintaining the integrity and functioning of the ecosystem.” This paragraph, on page two, appears sincere enough, a commitment to future herring research is definitely important. I then read the exact, word for word, statement in the 2013 report. Nine years later they have failed to do any of the conservation research they claimed to be working on, and they don’t even care enough to write a new excuse.

In 1996 conflicts between First Nations’ fishing practices and DFO’s regulations reached the Supreme Court of Canada when two Heiltsuk brothers, William and Donald Gladstone, were arrested for selling SOK. In what has become known as the Gladstone Commission, the Heiltsuk Nation argued their case and became the first Nation in Canada to be granted a court-affirmed, un-extinguished aboriginal right to commercially harvest and sell SOK. Unfortunately, this victory was not the end of the Heiltsuk Nation’s struggle with DFO. The SRF continued to kill thousands of tonnes of herring biomass every year resulting in extirpation of stocks throughout the territory.

In March, the Heiltsuk declared a tribal ban on commercial sac roe fishing in all of Area 7, including Spiller Channel, to preserve the region’s threatened herring stock. DFO opened the herring sac roe seine fishery in Spiller Channel shortly after.

“This action shows blatant disrespect of aboriginal rights by DFO and industry,” Chief Councillor Marilyn Slett told the CBC.

“DFO provided inconsistent and misleading communications throughout the day and did not attempt meaningful consultation,” said Slett.

“We must put conservation first. We have voluntarily suspended our community-owned commercial gillnet herring licenses for this season to allow stocks to rebuild, but DFO and industry are unwilling to follow suit,” said Kelly Brown, director of the Heiltsuk Integrated Resource Management Department.

In response to the situation, Fisheries and Oceans Canada told the CBC “We were committed to providing harvest opportunities where they were possible. A purse seine fishery did occur on March 22nd, yielding 690 tons of an available 800 tons. This fishery is now closed.”

The historical and ongoing treatment of herring by DFO is a tragedy. The constant theme underlying years of collapses and management failures is a complete disregard for the essential role these forage fish play in B.C.’s ecosystem and First Nations culture. Whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, cod, salmon and sea birds all feed heavily on herring, making those small fish hugely important in the coastal ecosystem. This miraculous, mysterious species – which provides a foundation for so many – needs more support.

Banner Image: Shoreline waters change colour as the herring spawn begins in the Great Bear Rainforest, photo by Ian McAllister

Building on the success of our Celebrating Youth in Our Community series, we’ve decided to initiate a series highlighting innovation and creativity within our region’s small business sector. This is the first of our series where we celebrate an innovative partnership between Russell Books and local schools.

Meeting at the sunny entrance of Russell Books, I joined the store’s manager, Andrea Minter, and very passionate group of teachers and parents to discuss their vision for inspired book fairs in Victoria schools – fairs that move beyond the corporate Scholastic model to integrate student’s interests with a small local business and sense of community. Sarah McLeod (a constituent of OBGH), the teacher-librarian at St. Margaret’s School currently doing her Master’s on the transformation of libraries to learning commons, Jennifer van Hardenberg, the communications coordinator for St. Margaret’s School, two of their Parents’ Auxiliary members, Victoria Davis and Stephanie Neilson (a constituent of OBGH), and I sat amongst great literary company in the vintage books section while they told me about the budding partnership between Russell Books and local schools.

Russell Books was started by Andrea’s grandfather, Reg Russell. He was a banker, she explained, with a book collection that outgrew his home. Andrea’s grandmother suggested he take all his books and open a small store and, in 1961, Mr. Russell did just that, starting with a 300 square foot book shop in Montreal. The store packed up and moved to Victoria in 1991 where it was run by Andrea’s parents. It has continued to expanded from its humble beginnings and now consists of 16,000 square feet of new and used books, all managed by Andrea and her husband.

Fed up with plastic book fairs that seemed designed to push stuff on their kids instead of celebrating the joy of reading, Sarah and Andrea joined forces to host their first-ever non-scholastic book fair at St. Margaret’s elementary school, building off similar fairs Andrea had hosted at Sir James Douglas where her children were students. On all levels, they said, it was a huge success. “We wanted to start slow,” Andrea said, “to make sure we were doing it right.”

“There is waste [associated with Scholastic fairs] and the books are also quite expensive,” added Sarah describing the metal boxes that would follow the shiny pamphlets to her library, chock-full of individually wrapped erasers and posters. “Russell Books provides a variety of prices [$2-20], a sense of community and warmth. It’s just a different feeling.”

70% of the books at Russell Books are used and readers can swap them back for store credit at the store once they are done, an element that provides students with a valuable lesson in sustainability and sharing.

The team working to grow and expand Russell book fairs to more schools is keen to keep kids involved. Over the past few years, the weeks leading up to their fairs are spent exchanging countless emails and phone calls about special books students are hoping will be at the fair.

“It’s all about forming connections and relationships – connecting the virtual and physical worlds found in stories, connecting schools with their community, connecting kids with books,” said Sarah.

Students have been engaged and excited about the fairs, and so have the staff at Russell Books. Before we wrapped up our meeting I asked Andrea what their capacity for expansion would be if other schools came forward interested in collaborating for their own fair, “absolutely,” she said, “we have an amazing staff here and everyone is keen to work at the book fair.” Not to mention they have over a million titles to choose from. The next fair at St. Margaret’s will be at the end of this month, coinciding with grandparent’s day.

It’s exciting to envision the potential whereby local booksellers partner with local schools to host book fairs that cater to the specific interests of our school communities. Thank you Russell Books for being an innovator in this regard.

Related reading on St. Margaret’s website.

On April 8th, a group of well-informed and passionate young people gathered at the Oak Bay-Gordon Head MLA Constituency Office as part of the Defend Our Future BC Day of Action on Climate Change. This was one of 23 meetings organized at MLA offices in 12 cities across BC. The purpose of the meeting was for the youth to express their opposition to the expansion of thermal coal exports from BC. They voiced their concern about the Port Metro Vancouver proposal to increase exports of American thermal coal through the Fraser-Surrey Docks coal transfer facility and through the Texada Island facility by 8 million tons annually and the risk to the health and well-being of communities in proximity to rail lines, port facilities and power plants.

Each of the youth in attendance spoke about why they came to the meeting and how they expect their elected leaders to defend their future. They spoke of the need to reduce the use of thermal coal as a means of producing electricity and the need to develop renewable energy sources to mitigate global climate change. It was inspiring to hear from these young people as they led the dialogue about issues that matter to them, their future and the future for generations to come.

On Thursday April 2, 2015, Adam Olsen and I were on Voice of BC with guest host Keith Baldrey. We discussed a number of issues including MSP Premiums, BC’s Treaty Commission, Vancouver’s Transit referndum, BC’s controversial wolf cull, the Kinder Morgan pipeline proposal and more.

Over the next few months the residents of Metro Vancouver will help shape the future of public transit in their region. The question is clear and the stakes are high:

“Do you support a new 0.5% Metro Vancouver Congestion Improvement Tax, to be dedicated to the Mayors’ Transportation and Transit Plan? Yes or No.“

The vote has sparked a heated debate about TransLink, public transit, how to fund it, and its future in the Lower Mainland. No matter what the result of this plebiscite is, it will have repercussions that echo across British Columbia.

A Flawed Plebiscite

The residents of Metro Vancouver are being asked to accept or reject a 0.5% regional increase to the provincial sales tax. All of the money raised by this tax will be used to fund much needed improvements to Metro Vancouver public transit system. I have already written about this referendum and the abdication of responsibility it represents. Governance is about dealing with issues; not letting them fester and hoping someone else takes the blame. True leadership means listening to stakeholders and being open to compromises. It means making difficult, necessary and, at times, unpopular decisions.

The provincial government was given an opportunity to display this kind of leadership. Metro Vancouver expects one million new residents in the next 30 years, putting an extra strain on an already overburdened transportation system. It is a problem that requires decisive, well thought out action that engages stakeholders and fixes systemic problems. Instead the government decided to duck its responsibility and hold a plebiscite.

The referendum began as a campaign promise. During the 2013 election the BC Liberals were down in the polls and grasping at straws. In a move that put politics before leadership, the Premier promised that any new TransLink tax would go before a referendum. Public Transit is a complicated issue; it’s a balancing act of providing services and staying affordable. It requires listening to the citizens of today while working for those of tomorrow.

Unfortunately, the BC Liberals ignored this.

With a focus on purely political outcomes, they waded, half-cocked, into a complex issue and we are witnessing the results. They set in motion a $6 million dollar referendum, the first in Canadian history asking voters to directly approve a tax, while ignoring the serious structural issues in Vancouver’s public transit.

Perhaps this explains why the province is asking the wrong question. They could have followed the Premier’s original plan and asked a more nuanced question. In her own words, “It needs to be a multiple-choice question. A simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ doesn’t do justice to the questions that are there.” This would have given voters more options, saving them from choosing between another regressive tax hike and a struggling transit system. Better yet, they could have explored a key concern by asking voters about the organization that runs public transit in Metro Vancouver. They could have asked a question about TransLink.

The latest polls paint a very clear picture. Only 12% of respondents, on either side, have a positive opinion of TransLink. Contrast this with the 39% that believe “TransLink is very broken and needs a complete overhaul”’ and the additional 25% who have a generally negative view of the organization. In fact, 61% of those planning to vote No, believe that TransLink cannot be trusted with the extra funds to be raised by this tax. The Vancouver referendum is turning into a vote about TransLink and the management of its 1.5 billion dollar annual budget instead of a vote about transit.

Despite all of this, Transportation Minister Todd Stone has made it clear that he will not reform TransLink, regardless of the plebiscite’s results. The government promised a referendum while refusing to listen to residents of the Lower Mainland. They’re not just voting No to the tax increase, they’re voting No to TransLink. People are calling for change. People are calling for reform. And the government is pretending that they can’t hear them.

There are serious problems with TransLink. And here I am not only talking about the examples of waste outlined by the No Transit Tax campaign. Improving inefficiency and eliminating wasteful processes is important, but will not come close to raising the needed funds.

My concerns have more to do with the structure of TransLink and the unfortunate relationship it has had with the province. In my view this referendum has given us the opportunity to open a conversation about TransLink. It has to regain the trust of the people it serves. Regardless of how Metro Vancouver votes, there needs to be change. In order to understand how to move forward, I think it is important to first look back, not only at the referendum but also at TransLink itself.

A History of Interference

TransLink was set up by the BC NDP and took over services from BC Transit in 1999. It was envisioned as a more accountable, more local and a more fiscally independent organization. It was given an expanded mandate including roads and bridges, in addition to buses and trains. Unlike its predecessor, the board of TransLink was elected. Along with this accountability came the new power to raise taxes independently, allowing for more financial security and long term planning. Over the next decade this oversight, and the original vision, for TransLink, would be stripped away, leaving us with the transportation authority we have today.

The Provincial Government’s meddling began months before TransLink officially began operations. Glen Clark’s NDP government announced the construction of the Millennium Line, a system that would use SkyTrain technology and run only through NDP ridings. This biased route earned it the nickname a ‘train to nowhere’. Besides the obvious partisan criticism, it also drew the ire of the local officials. The new line would derail their plans for a light rapid transit to Coquitlam and saddled TransLink with significant costs.

Not to be outdone, Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government also blocked a transit line to Coquitlam, this time to build the Canada Line. This SkyTrain project connected the Vancouver International Airport with the downtown core. The project was a centerpiece for their Olympic proposal and faced heavy resistance within the TransLink board. They had serious concerns over cost and believed that the resources were much better spent elsewhere. They voted against the government’s proposal twice before finally backing down, accepting the project with substantial fiscal safeguards.

The delay prompted Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon to announce sweeping changes to the TransLink board. He claimed the elected board was too narrow in their thinking, especially in the debates surrounding the Canada Line. In other words, he was saying that the local board created to serve local citizens was too local in its thinking.

TransLink was designed as a regional authority, which was transparent and fully accountable to the people Metro Vancouver. As a body with the authority to raise taxes and seriously impact the lives of residents throughout the region it needed to have a social license to operate. It had to be attentive to the needs of the people. This all ended with Minister Falcon’s interventions.

Governance and Reform

Before the Minister’s sweeping changes were made, a board of fifteen directors ran TransLink. Twelve of the directors were mayors and councillors appointed by Metro Vancouver. The remaining three were Provincial MLAs, although these seats usually remained vacant. The directors made tough decisions but had to engage with voters to build support for policies.

The authority is now run by two boards. One is still elected — the Mayors’ Council consisting of all elected representatives in the Metro Vancouver area. The council has the power to oversee the sale of major assets as well as approve various proposals by the TransLink Board of Directors.

Mayors’ Council also choose the members of the Board of Directors. Perhaps ‘sort of choose’ is a better way to say this. Every year the Mayors’ Council receives a short list of individuals nominated by a screening panel made up of government and professional representations. The Mayors than choose new directors from this list. If they do not choose enough directors to fill the empty seats the decision reverts to the screening panel.

This appointed board has a wide range of responsibilities including developing long term plans, approving TransLink’s operating budget and running the ‘day-to-day’ operations of TransLink. Despite this significant power there is no way to hold board members accountable. They can only be fired by provincial legislation, and don’t have to worry about re-election. The process was intentionally designed to be a step removed from democracy, mirroring port and airport legislation. The key difference between TransLink and any port authority is that TransLink has the ability to raise taxes on more than 2 million people.

Two board seats have been recently added for mayors and two more, still vacant, have been added for province. While these tentative steps towards engagement and democratization are a step in the right direction they do not go nearly far enough.

Regardless of the results of the plebiscite, TransLink’s governance must be reformed. It is far too big and far too powerful to be so far removed from democracy. There has been much talk about the need for change, but not nearly enough on how this change could occur. An interesting place to start this discussion would be to examine the way public transit is governed in London, England.

Like Metro Vancouver, London’s transportation system is run by a large organization (Transportation for London — TFL) with a broad mandate including buses, trains, roads and cyclists. Unlike Metro Vancouver the ultimate power is in the hands of the mayor. This democratically elected representative sets an overall vision for the city and designs the policies and the strategies that will bring it into practice.

The mayor is also the chair of the TFL Board of Directors. This board is responsible for implementing the vision and strategies put forward by the mayor. Each of these directors is handpicked by the mayor and is drawn from a broad spectrum and currently includes the Executive Chairman of British Airways and a licensed taxi driver.

Transposing this model onto TransLink, the authority would still be run by two boards but the power dynamic would shift. The elected and accountable Mayors’ Council would be responsible for deciding organizational goals and the policies which could bring them to fruition. The mayors currently sitting on the board of directors could move to chair positions. The Council as a whole could appoint the other directors directly and be able to end their tenure early, should the need arise.

This is by no means the only avenue for change, it is just one model that has worked in one place. The new TransLink must be the result of significant consultation and debate and I only mean to illustrate one potential alternative.

Conclusion

This referendum shouldn’t have happened. At best, it is a misguided dereliction of duty on the part of the provincial government. At worst it is a cynical political ploy. If Premier Clark was serious about bringing democracy back to TransLink then she should have done so. The Premier should have reformed the organization, bringing back democracy consistently, instead of throwing voters a bone when it’s politically convenient.

It is unfortunate that the province decided to take us down this path. It has not stopped people from expressing their distrust of TransLink, but it has left them without a proper forum to call for change. Regardless of how the Lower Mainland votes there needs to be a serious conversation about TransLink. And this conversation should not only be about its flaws. It should also be about how we can fix them. The call for change may have begun with a referendum but it doesn’t need to end there.

Finally, as I wrote in the article in February, if I lived in Vancouver, I would vote ‘Yes’. I would do so reluctantly. I would do so begrudgingly. And I would do so frustratedly, knowing that my provincial government had abdicated its leadership responsibility.

These are my thoughts on TransLink. What are yours?