On June 17, 2003, Judge Saunderson of the BC Provincial Court acquitted 40 fishermen who fished illegally last year to protest the Department of Fisheries and Ocean's (DFO) native-only commercial fishery, the Aboriginal Fishery Strategy (AFS).

Judge Saunderson stated, "The result of what some might describe as the DFO's policy of political correctness, but what I choose to call a lack of courage to carry out its mandate as defined by our highest court, is the loss of its moral authority." Judge Saunderson went further, "Unquestionably on the facts of this case, the DFO has not acted in an even-handed way toward all commercial sockeye fishermen."

The Aboriginal Fishery Strategy was first implemented on the Pacific coast in 1992. The program enabled four pilot native bands (Burrard, Musqueam, Tsawwassen and Sto:lo) to operate limited pilot commercial fisheries in the lower Fraser River. Several times in recent years, non-native commercial fishermen have been shut out of the harvesting while the native commercial fishermen have been allowed to fish. This has lead to various protests by non-native commercial fishermen.

The federal government and native groups claim the program was implemented as a way of complying with the Sparrow Supreme Court of Canada ruling. Unfortunately, the justification is based on a false interpretation of that ruling.

The 1990 Sparrow decision did not give natives the right to a native-only commercial fishery. What the decision did do was affirm that native people have a right - protected by the Constitution - to harvest fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes.

This was further supported in 1996 when the Supreme Court of Canada rejected the claim of both the Sto:lo and the Nu-Chal-Nulth bands to exclusive native commercial fisheries. The 1998 Thomas case, affirmed a native-only fishery to be illegal. And as Judge Saunderson points out in the most recent ruling, these decisions did not give the DFO the ability to manage the fishery so as to benefit one group at the expense of all others.

Moreover, on June 12, 2003 a federal parliamentary committee found the AFS to be a failed experiment that has not achieved its goal of reducing illegal fishing or bringing economic health to the industry. The committee also called for the immediate return to a single fishery for natives and non-natives. Regrettably, the federal Liberal government continues to implement the "politically correct" AFS program.

Ironically, natives have always enjoyed the same right of access to commercial fisheries as all other Canadians. For example, 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. There was no need for the Aboriginal Fishery Strategy then or now.

Even if you can forget about the blatant misinterpretation of Supreme Court of Canada decisions, and the disregard for equality, it is difficult to forget that politicians have introduced racial tensions into an industry where few exited and where natives already had a history of success.