Should native Canadians in British Columbia be given - at a minimum - 50 per cent of all BC fisheries That's what a report for the First Nations Summit and the BC Aboriginal Fisheries Commission calls for.

Specifically, the report, Our place at the table: First Nations in the BC Fishery, calls for Canada to "take immediate steps to allocate to First Nations a minimum 50 per cent share of all fisheries, with the understanding that this may eventually reach 100 per cent in some fisheries." The report claims that if not done, there will be more uncertainty stemming from protests and court disputes.

Canada has already tried a similar approach and failed.

The Aboriginal Fishery Strategy (AFS) was first implemented on the Pacific coast in 1992. The program enabled four native bands to pilot the management and sale of their commercial food fish. It was expanded in 1994 to allow government to take voluntarily retired commercial fishing licences and the issuances of new licences and offer them to eligible native organizations. Other Canadian fishermen - commercial or recreational - were left with whatever fragments might remain. In other words, native Canadians fished first.

The AFS lead to escalating tension between native and non-native fishermen (Burnt Church and the Fraser River), and growing tension between natives. A Newfoundland Mi'kmaq man took his band to court over a communal fishing licence issued by the AFS.

Thankfully, on July 28, 2004 the BC Provincial Court ruled that a separate commercial fishery for select native groups infringes on the right to equality under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Judge Kitchen wrote, "My conclusion is that there may be non-financial disadvantages experienced by the Musqueam and Tsawwassen bands, but there is no rational connection between the preferential treatment given the bands in the fishery and these disadvantages. This program confers an unjustifiable benefit on the individual members of the bands, at the emotional and financial expense of the commercial fishers. It is therefore grossly unfair."

Judge Kitchen's decision was based largely on the facts that there had always been equal entry into the BC commercial fishery except for the Japanese; that aboriginal Canadians already made up a large portion of the participants in the fisher (47 per cent of the seiners, for example); and race-based commercial fisheries created social, economic and management problems throughout the fishery the cost of which were borne by fishermen in the public fishery.

Judge Kitchen's decision lead to the federal government abolishing the controversial Aboriginal Fishery Strategy (AFS).

What the First Nations Summit and BC Aboriginal Fisheries advocate for is a return of an expanded Aboriginal Fishery Strategy. This will not lead to less uncertainty stemming from protests and court disputes; it will lead to more.