VICTORIA: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation's (CTF), Centre for Aboriginal Policy Change (the Centre) responded today to the July 28, 2003 British Columbia Provincial Court decision declaring the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy unconstitutional.

Judge William Kitchen stated the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy (AFS), which provides Native Canadians an exclusive commercial fishery, is equal to racial discrimination against commercial fishermen.

"The Centre has long argued that a native-only commercial fishery was morally and legally wrong," stated the Centre's director Tanis Fiss. "It is reassuring to know the Courts now agree a native-only commercial fishery is discriminatory."

In Canada, natives have enjoyed the same right of access to commercial fisheries as all other Canadians. In British Columbia, prior to the implementation of the AFS native people participated in the commercial fishery at a ratio ten times that of their ratio to the general population.

In the fall of 2001 a federal parliamentary committee found the fishing policy to be illegal, yet the federal Liberal government continued to implement the program.

"According to Department of Fisheries and Oceans' data, the Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy has spent nearly $160 million in the last five years, on a program that has been deemed unconstitutional by the Provincial court. The Centre for Aboriginal Policy Change demands the federal government eliminate the AFS immediately," concluded Fiss.

First implemented in 1992, the AFS set aside fishing times for native fishermen exclusively and granted them the right to sell some of their catch.