In response to a June, 2006, column I wrote for the Calgary Herald which argued the federal Conservatives de facto endorsed race-based commercial fisheries, Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded with a promise. He stated in his July letter to the Herald, "In the coming months, we will strike a judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River salmon fishery and oppose racially divided fisheries programs."

That was clear and should have ended the internal Tory debate. But apparently two of his ministers, Jim Prentice and Loyola Hearn, and their bureaucrats didn't get the message - odd given that one of them publicly repeated Mr. Harper's pledge. First up is Fisheries Minister Hearn, who last month chastised Delta-Richmond East Member of Parliament - and fellow Conservative - John Cummins before the House of Commons fisheries and oceans committee. "We've had problems on the West Coast this year," said the minister, "and a lot of them caused by a group involved with you, Mr. Cummins."

Mr. Hearn's target was the B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition, a group composed of native and non-native fishermen. With Mr. Cummins, they have long opposed racial divisions in the Fraser River's commercial fishery. The segregation - some natives can fish while non-natives sit on the dock - was established in the early 1990s by the department Minister Hearn now heads. But the Conservative minister, as with many Liberals before him, pressured West coast commercial fishermen to accept a permanent racial division.

Many declined and for good reason. First, the Fraser fishery was always one of the most integrated workforces in the country, with near 40% of the fishermen having native ancestry. Any government-engineered division was unnecessary and harmful to race relations.

Second, separation was not required by law. Constitutionally, Native Canadians can hunt and fish for sustenance, social and ceremonial purposes, but not for commercial purposes. Also, while in past rulings the Supreme Court has allowed governments to enact quotas in the commercial fishery, it has not mandated them. "May" does not equal "must." This is a critical distinction overlooked by those who support racially segregated fisheries.

But back to the politicians and bureaucrats and the second minister to muddle Mr. Harper's promise: Indian Affairs Minister Prentice, who back in July reiterated the Prime Minister's promise to end discrimination in the commercial fishery. Indian Affairs negotiators have drafted agreements which, if approved by Parliament, will activate a race-based commercial fishing privilege where none existed before. One example is the recent treaty signed by Ottawa, British Columbia, and the Lheidli T'enneh (near Prince George). A side agreement provides for a Lheidli T'enneh-only share of the commercial harvest for Upper Fraser Sockeye Salmon.

The agreement's defenders, chief among them Minister Prentice, claim the commercial harvest guarantee is not a race-based privilege. "This is not a fishery on the Fraser River that we're proposing that is racially segregated," said Mr. Prentice in a recent interview with the Vancouver Sun. "It is quota-segregated, if you will, or harvest allotment-segregated."

This is a distinction without a difference. Once the treaty and side agreement are approved, the Lheidli T'enneh will possess a guaranteed share of the commercial harvest because they are a native band which negotiated a native-only privilege. If it swims, waddles, and quacks like a race-based exception, it is.

Another tack taken by the defenders of the Lheidli T'enneh agreement is that it cannot possibly be a segregated commercial fishery because, as the deal's fact sheet states, "it and its management would be integrated within the general commercial fishery."

But Messrs. Harper, Prentice, Hearn, and B.C. Minister of Aboriginal Relations Mike DeJong should not swallow bureaucratic codswallop served up by their departments. It does not matter if the management of the guaranteed share of the commercial harvest is integrated. The privilege exists in the guaranteed share, not in who manages it. And this off-limits portion of the commercial fishery will multiply with each new Lheidli T'enneh-like agreement.

If this deal is passed and more like it are signed, non-native B.C. commercial fishermen (and natives outside of bands with such deals) will find themselves worse off than under the Liberals. The Conservatives will have expanded and legally cemented a privilege connected to ethnicity, one which was previously at least a changeable policy regulation.

In so doing, both Ministers Prentice and Hearn will have - deliberately or passively - allowed bureaucrats to defy the Prime Minister and deny his stated intention to change a previous government's policy, an adjustment admirable for its steadfast attachment to ethnic neutrality.

Everyone except Mr. Prentice and his mandarins are frank about the word games being played. British Columbia reporters and columnists - including the Sun's Vaughn Palmer and the Victoria Times Colonist's Les Leyne - have concluded race-based fishing is going ahead and will be entrenched in agreements, despite the Prime Minister's promise.

West coast fishermen, and indeed any Canadian who believes it is wrong to extend racial divisions when there is no constitutional or treaty requirement to do so, should complain long and loud to Conservative MPs and to the Prime Minister.

If Messrs. Prentice and Hearn continue to freelance on policy - or wink wink, nudge nudge - let their bureaucrats do it for them, racial division will be exacerbated, not ameliorated. Such agreements will correctly be seen as a betrayal by the West Coast commercial fishery. And - given their promise this summer - it will shred the credibility of Prime Minister Harper and Minister Prentice. It is a worse outcome than if they had never promised to end race-based fishing in the first place.

Mark Milke, a former director with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation from 1997 to 2002, is author of A Nation of Serfs How Canada's Political Culture Corrupts Canadian Values.