Taxing the Fish

"It's like going to the Calgary Stampede and expecting to take home a side of beef," says former commercial fisherman John Disney of Masset.

He, like many who once made a good living on the seas, feel the elite sport fishing industry in British Columbia is taking wild salmon away from coastal communities and giving it to those wealthy enough to fly in for a chance to play a feisty tyee.

And it is not just local fishermen hooked on this line of concern. Local governments are worried about getting some kind of payback for the use of local resources too.

After years of discussion, the Skeena-Queen Charlotte Regional District, has opted to implement a two per cent tax on some of the lodges on the Queen Charlotte Islands. But after sending the bylaw to the province for approval they hit a serious snag. The province says 50 per cent of lodge owners must agree to the tax before it can be passed.

Much of the sport fishing lodge controversy swirls around the fish-filled waters of the northwest coast of Haida Gwaii. There are seven land-based lodges on this rugged coast, but many of the deluxe accommodations are on floating lodges, some nothing more than ships that anchor while the fishing is good, then move on.

Recreational fishing booming

Around 18 fishing lodges operate on Haida Gwaii, but the number fluctuates year to year. Although the land-based lodges pay leases and taxes, the regional district has not been successful at assessing and taxing many of the floating lodges and none of the lodges will agree to pay the new two per cent tax.

Regional District administrator Janet Beil argues the transient lodges do little for the economy of the islands, as guests are flown in by charter plane and transferred directly to float planes or helicopters for the last leg. Supplies such as food, gear, and even gasoline are brought in with the guests. Most lodges don't even process the fish on the Queen Charlotte Islands.

Some operations pay nothing more to set up in these wilderness areas than a business license, a few fishing licenses for staff and a liquor license for the guests. Leases are required, but not often acquired.

"Why businesses in our area and extracting our resources have more say than the community impacted by them is beyond me," says Beil.

Perhaps it is because the recreational fishing industry is booming. Lodges charge anywhere from $3,000 to $4,500 for a five night package. All told the industry brought in $620 million to the provincial economy last year, says Eric Kristenson spokesperson for the Sportsfishing Institute, an industry-supported lobby group.

In 1985, when the first lodge set up on Langara, 500 chinook salmon were reeled in by guests. In 2004, the take went well beyond the projected 60,000, forcing the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to reassess midseason. By the end of the year, 74,000 chinook, one of the most valuable and coveted fish on the coast, were bagged by thrill-seeking, deep-pocketed anglers.

Although the commercial fishery brought in 150,000 chinook in 2004, the best year since 1997, Disney insists that every fish caught by a sports fisher is one that won't help pay mortgages or put food on the table in Masset, a community that has supported fishermen for thousands of years.

'Like last buffalo hunt'

The controversy has been swirling around for more than 15 years now, and by some people's standards, the sport fishers have gotten their crab cake and eaten it too.

By 1990 the Council of the Haida Nation (CHN) had already had enough. More and more lodges and sport fishers were amassing each season on traditional Haida fishing grounds, creating conflict on trolling tacks and dominating well-known halibut holes.

According to Arnie Bellis, vice-president of the CHN, a Royal Commission type report was prepared that year which recommended a Haida-led management plan for the industry. They called for a restriction on the number of beds, visitor days, and fish caught. The Haida also called a moratorium on any more lodge development, which was respected by the province.

"It is like the last of the buffalo hunt and it is starting to have a substantial impact on Haida Gwaii," says Bellis.

The conflict culminated with a protest, in which Haida in large canoes, along with commercial fishermen, amassed in the small harbour off Langara, positioning themselves so it was impossible for planes to bring customers in to the Charlotte Princess, one of Oak Bay Marine Group's contentious lodges.

Controversial report

Then in 1996, a controversial report called "The Economic Value of Salmon," prepared by Gordon Gislason for DFO and the province of B.C. suggested that a sports-caught chinook is worth more than $670 to the provincial economy compared with only $26 for a commercially harvested salmon. Disney and many others, including Don Pepper, a former economist with DFO who teaches at BCIT and wrote a rebuttal report, felt the methods used to arrive at these numbers were unsound. Nevertheless the report was used to justify political decisions about fishing on the west coast.

Compounding all of this was a real concern for some salmon stocks in the mid 1990s and the ensuing Mifflin Plan. The minister at the time, Fred Mifflin, decided the commercial fishery should be cut in half, and in the wake of his plan, more than 1,173 licenses were bought out or lost due to fishermen being forced to reduce their activity to one type of fishing gear.

In 1999, DFO further restricted the Haida Gwaii commercial fishermen. They gave the recreational sector priority access to chinook and coho salmon, and the commercial sector primary access to sockeye, pink, and chum salmon. And a no-go boundary along the north coast of Graham Island was imposed on commercial boats to address congestion in the area.

Tax: 'It's a crumb'

Disney says the trouble communities like Masset, Ahousaht, and Kitkatla are facing now are repercussions from bad decisions made over the past 16 years.  "We are still suffering and the problem is an entire generation has disappeared, who could teach younger ones how to get access to the resource," he says.

Disney says the commercial fleet in Masset used to consist of 54 boats, all built locally. Now there are only a couple left and none of them are in the Haida village of Old Massett. People feel the proposed two per cent tax hardly makes up for what they've lost.

"It is a crumb, but it is better than nothing," says Disney, who is incredulous the lodges won't agree to the tax.

West Coast Fishing Club owner Rick Grange takes exception to the generalization that all the lodges on Haida Gwaii are not giving anything back to the community. He owns two land-based lodges and one floating lodge in the Langara Island area and another farther down the west coast.

"There are good lodges and bad lodges," says Grange, who also now owns a house and lives on the islands.

He knows and is unhappy about the lodges in the area that don't pay for leases, don't employ locals, take the fish and leave. The most infuriating for him is that his customers sometimes book into these other places by mistake, due to the myriad of similarly named outfits.

Lodge employs 130

Grange, who after buying 38 acres of deeded property zoned for a resort and a marina, opened his first lodge on Langara Island in 1991.

Last year he employed 130 people, more than half of them from the islands. He says he also tries to buy as much as he can locally and use locals to build or do renovations on his property in the winter. He was the first lodge owner to consistently use the Masset airport and he also has all of his clients' fish packaged and processed locally.

"We're not in here to make a few dollars for a couple of years, we're looking at this as a long term business, long term commitment."

But Grange says his foremost concern is to put more fish back into the ocean than his clients take out.

He collects five dollars from his guests for each fish they kill and matches it, which he then gives to an organization he set up called Queen Charlotte Islands Salmon Unlimited.

Grange recruited his neighbours at Langara Island Lodge to participate in the program as well, and together they have raised around $600,000 in the last six years. This goes into local salmon enhancement programs on the north island, including managing a hatchery, repairing fish ladders and restoring access to creeks that cross the highway.

Owners question fairness of tax

Grange also promotes catch and release. He has set up a unique fish bank system, in which he buys salmon from local commercial fishermen, and keeps these at the processing plant in Masset for clients who agree to release any fish they catch.

"If it's a bleeder, they take the fish and mark it down on their ticket and it goes back into the pool for others who decide to go catch and release," he says aware of the concerns regarding mortality statistics on catch and release.

With all he does, Grange doesn't think the regional district's tax is the answer.

Kristensen says lodge owners do not support the proposed regional district tax for a number of reasons. For one thing it isn't fair.

The tax is aimed at lodges on the north end of Graham Island and wouldn't affect other charter operators or accommodations on the island or on the mainland, says Kristensen.

But more importantly to Kristensen, is the lack of a clear picture of how the money would be used. The SFI have been told the money will go into a fund to promote tourism on the islands. Kristensen says the sports fishing industry already spends $2–3 million on promoting the Queen Charlotte Islands as a destination.

Kristensen argues the lodges collectively contribute $7 million a year to the local economy through wages and tips, as well as lodge and client expenditures.

'Has to be level playing field'

Disney points to the reported $2 million in local wages. Spread out over the reported 115 local employees, the average is $17,000 each, a far cry from the $100,000 many local fishermen used to earn. And Disney points out that the 2003 report, "The Queen Charlotte Islands Fishing Lodge Industry," was written by Gislason, the same consultant whose 1996 report reported much higher benefits from sports fishing compared to commercial operations.

Gislason himself couldn't give a detailed breakdown of the numbers. He says the lodges voluntarily reported what they spent on the island through a survey he sent to them. For example, his report allocates $2 million in transportation as a local expenditure. This number includes air transport from Masset to the lodges, which many argue is carried out by companies not headquartered on the islands.

"I guess there is a legitimate issue about how much of that actually is a benefit to the Charlottes," he says.

For his part, Grange would rather see governments put more effort into ensuring all lodges are properly leased, taxed and regulated.

"There has to be a level playing field and a code of conduct," he says.

The problem with this theory is no one government department handles the sport fishing industry and none of the many interested departments have budgets to monitor the situation on the rugged coast. In 2002, Samson Lodge in Naden Harbour sunk and many believe with proper monitoring, this could have been prevented.

Haida to key off Supreme Court ruling

Ian Smythe, section head for Land and Water British Columbia based in Smithers, cites the moratorium as the reason there are lodges with no leases. They stopped writing new tenures in 1990 and, according to Smythe, will not proceed until a proper planning exercise has taken place.

Bellis says the Haida are in the process of starting another round of discussions with stakeholders and the province around the management of sports fishing. He notes the Haida are looking to ensure the recent Supreme Court decision regarding the government's duty to consult and accommodate is upheld in this industry.

Skeena-Bulkley Valley Member of Parliament Nathan Cullen appreciates islanders' concerns about the sport fishing industry.

"You find this type of elite tourism all around the world," he says.

The attractiveness of the place, be it the Galapagos Islands off Ecuador or the fishing grounds off Haida Gwaii, is the remoteness, but unless operators are willing to support the local communities conflict will ensue.

"People feel a great ownership and responsibility to water and fish [on Haida Gwaii]. When someone takes it out of their control, people get up in arms ... and so they should," he says.

Heather Ramsay, a journalist in Queen Charlotte City, is a frequent contributor to The Tyee.