Muskeg Press

Charter operators up and down the coast of B.C. are concerned the recreational halibut fishery could be shut down as early as mid-July, pushing away clients and costing them money. But the Department of Fisheries & Oceans says it cannot predict when the season will close because it hasn’t yet set any daily limits on halibut for 2011, nor has it announced when the fishery will actually open.

Charter fishermen are angry with their allocation of 12 per cent of the total allowable catch of halibut, mandated by the federal government, which they say is too low.

Rodney Proskiw, the owner/operator of Fishin’ Rods Charters in Prince Rupert, says he has had to deal with early closures in the past, after the federal government declared the industry went over the 12 per cent limit mid-way through the season.

Since many of Proskiw’s customers come to Rupert to fish for halibut, the early closures have put his business in an uncertain situation. “When the carpet gets pulled from under us in the middle of the season, what do we do?” he asks.

The halibut fishery on the west coast of North America is managed by the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), a regulating body with Canadian and American representatives that determine conservation levels of the resource. Although fishermen tend to distrust and lash out against any government body, the IPHC is a shining exception: many recreational halibut fishermen respect it as a top-notch management entity.

Using data from the previous fishing year, as well as measurements on biomass levels, the IPHC sets the total allowable catch for 10 fishing regions in the seas off the west coast. These numbers are then handed down to the respective governments to implement and monitor the halibut catch. In Canada, Area 2B is the main concern: it stretches along the entire west coast of the country.

Last month, the IPHC’s staff made a recommendation for the total allowable catch of halibut in Area 2B for the 2011 season: 7.65 million pounds, up from 7.5 million pounds in 2010. This is not the final number – it is still up to the IPHC’s commissioners and advisory bodies to adopt the official total allowable catch for the halibut fishery.

Since 2003, Canadian fishermen have been regulated by the 88-12 rule, monitored by the Department of Fisheries & Oceans. The IPHC’s total allowable catch for halibut is divided between two industries: the commercial fishery, which receives 88 per cent; and the recreational fishery, which receives 12 per cent. So if this year’s allocation stays at 7.65 million pounds, the commercial fishery’s limit on halibut will be 6.73 million pounds, while the recreational fishery’s limit will be 0.92 million pounds.

The 88-12 percent division, which was legislated by the government in 2003, is the biggest sticking point in the debate for recreational fishermen. Since its inception, says Paul Rickard, the recreational industry has been fighting the rule.

Rickard is with the B.C. Wildlife Federation, one of the member organizations of the B.C. Sportfishing Coalition, formed in December 2010. He says members of the recreational industry have written and met with various fisheries ministers for the past seven years to change the 88-12 rule, all without success. As a last resort, he says the coalition was formed to mobilize support in town-hall meetings across Vancouver Island, and to encourage its members to write to their MPs and MLAs.

“This coming year could be a disaster,” says Rickard, who, like Proskiw, predicts the recreational halibut fishery will be closed sometime in July. “How do you book people in when you don’t even know what you’ll be able to offer or when you’ll be able to offer it?”

Rickard estimates there are 100,000 recreational fishermen out in the Pacific each year, who bring in about $650 million to the provincial economy. This year, those 100,000 fishermen will be allotted 0.92 million pounds, if the commission accepts the recommendation of the IPHC staff. Rickard says it simply isn’t fair that the remaining 6.73 million pounds are allotted to 435 commercial licence-holders.

And Rickard is not alone in that opinion. While operators like Proskiw don’t have any harsh feelings towards the commercial fishing industry, they say the needs of a vast majority are being denied to make 435 people very wealthy.

“As long as the 88-and-12 exists, there will be a problem,” says Proskiw. “Our government is just divvying it up all wrong.”

Proskiw says a slight rise, say, to 16 per cent, may even be enough. “But something has to happen,” he says.

A spokesman with the Department of Fisheries & Oceans says the prediction of a mid-July closure is based on the recreational industry’s advice to the government. Tamee Mawani, the regional manager for groundfish in the Pacific region for Fisheries & Oceans, says the Sport Fishing Advisory Board (which represents the recreational industry in negotiations with government) advised the government on a daily limit of two halibut, up from one halibut per day last year – which they predict would close the fishery in July.

“That was their advice to us,” says Mawani.

Mawani also points out the Department of Fisheries & Oceans has not yet set a daily limit for the recreational halibut fishery for the 2011 season, and it has not decided when it will open. She says the government is aware of the concerns over the 88-12 rule, and it has discussed the issue since April 2010 with the recreational & the commercial industry (represented by the Pacific Halibut Management Association).

Mawani says it is ultimately up to the minister to decide whether or not to increase the 12 per cent allocation.

Meanwhile, the total allowable catch for halibut in both industries will be set by the IPHC at its annual meeting, held this year in Victoria from January 25-28.

~Written by Chris Armstrong. Photo submitted.

As of 3:30 p.m. this afternoon, five workers on the MV Nicola, the ferry that runs between Prince Rupert & Lax Kw’alaams through Tuck Inlet, went on strike.

The ferry, operated by the Lax Kw’alaams band, is now parked in its regular spot at Aero Point in Seal Cove. The last run up Tuck Inlet was this morning. A picket line has been set up outside Aero Point.

Ken Lippett, the business manager with Construction, Maintenance & Allied Workers Local 1735, said the Lax Kw’alaams band had offered a raise of one per cent per year over three years, which he said isn’t enough. “These employees are paid far below scale for this coast,” he said, adding that the equivalent B.C. Ferries job pays about $9 to $12 more per hour.

But Lippett said wages are a side-issue compared to the main concern: that a first agreement has not yet been signed. The five workers applied for union certification in December 2009, he said, and were granted unionized status in March 2010. Bargaining started in May, but talks fell apart in June, said Lippett. Between now and then, no first bargaining agreement has yet been signed, he said.

Lippett said the union and the band were in negotiations with a conciliator with the Federal Labour Board up until December 10. A strike vote was held on December 11, he said, but workers could not legally declare a strike until a 21-day cooling-off period had transpired. On January 4, the workers gave a 72-hour strike notice.

Lippett said workers are also concerned about unpaid overtime, as well as being “married to the job” while working a split shift between the morning and afternoon runs to Lax Kw’alaams.

No one at the Lax Kw’alaams Band Office was immediately available for comment. But in a news release posted on December 31 on its website, the band said the union is demanding too much of a wage increase, even after it was offered a pension and health plan.

The release also states the band doesn’t receive independent funding for the ferry, so money from other band programs must be spent on running the Nicola. “Last year, that amounted to more than $145,000 being spent on the ferry rather than such programs as education, social assistance and the Christmas gift program,” states the press release. (Available here.)

The press release also states the offer made to the union “balances the desires of the ferry crew with the larger community interest in maintaining funding for other Band programs and avoiding higher ferry fares.”

Lippett said a picket line will be going up around the Nicola at 3:30 p.m. today.

The Nicola is also known as the Spirit of Lax Kw’alaams. Its capacity is 16 vehicles and 133 passengers. The upgrades to the ferry dock at Aero Point were completed in the spring of 2010.

~Written by Chris Armstrong

B.C. Liberal leadership hopeful Mike de Jong said a recent decision by the government of India has the potential to lead to increased trade with the country in lumber exports. While the main industrial players in the Northwest welcome such an announcement, they say they currently have no business contracts with India.

According to a press release sent out by de Jong’s office, the main restriction in lumber exports to southeast Asia was over concerns from the Indian government over plant pests hiding in the shipments. Now, said de Jong, the Indian Ministry of Agriculture will allow imports of spruce, pine & fir after they’ve been heat-treated for phytosanitary reasons.

Taking a bit of time out from stumping in Houston, de Jong said in an interview with Muskeg News that Prince Rupert can benefit from this “trade barrier” being lifted with India through its geography and the port’s ability to “build capacity.”

“Any steps we take to increase our share in southeast Asia is good news for Prince Rupert and the port facility,” he said. De Jong added the efforts of the provincial government to drop this trade barrier will help “set the table” for forestry businesses looking to get into the Indian market.

Looked at another way, at least part of the table had been set for business to India; according to de Jong’s press release, Canada already ships $40 million worth of wood each year to India. But de Jong said that, with the plant-pest restrictions now gone, lumber shipments could double in two years, and double again after two more years — an increase to $160 million in the next four years.

“I think that’s a realistic target to set,” he said.

While local businesses don’t have any current contracts with India, that’s not for lack of effort. Wayne Drury, the CEO of Coast Tsimshian Resources, said in an email that the company has been looking to break into the Indian market for the past three years.

“We were working with an international marketing team and since then we have had a number of back and forth enquiries,” wrote Drury. “We are now in our final negotiations on a shipment that should see us crack through shortly.”

Drury also invoked China as an example of a market that opened up and allowed “a number of companies to get going again.”

Also promoting China’s place in the local economy is Peter Jaskiewicz, the acting manager of Quickload, a local company that boxes lumber in containers from B.C. forestry companies before they’re sent across the Pacific. Jaskiewicz said it’s up to forestry companies, like Canfor, to decide where they want to send their wood; while Quickload is not sending any wood to India right now, he said they’re ready to handle it if the companies decide to export it there.

Similar comments were made by the Prince Rupert Port Authority. Maynard Angus, the Port Authority’s manager of public affairs, said there is potential for Rupert to be a “strategic gateway” for exports to India. “However,” he wrote in an email, “at this time we do not have any direct service to India. Time will tell.”

~Written by Chris Armstrong

B.C. Liberal leadership hopeful Kevin Falcon unleashed the wrath of the provincial teachers’ union earlier this week when he said he would reward schools based on student achievement, if he was chosen to be premier. The union quickly dubbed the idea “merit pay” and tore it apart.

Perhaps not surprisingly, the idea isn’t flying in Prince Rupert. Gary Coons, North Coast NDP MLA and a teacher for 28 years, said Falcon’s idea was probably just a trial balloon, “full of hot air.” A teacher for 28 years before becoming a politician, Coons said merit pay is based on old-fashioned models that have no place in the education system.

“Teachers teach from the heart, not from the book,” said Coons. He added that student achievement is only one metric in the otherwise complex and diverse environment known as the classroom.

“I believe it’s a very destructive concept that does nothing but erode the quality of the system,” said Coons.

Meanwhile, Joanna Larson, the president of the Prince Rupert District Teachers’ Union, summed up her opinion on merit pay with one word: “ridiculous.”

What Larson takes issue with is that merit pay is based on false assumptions — that teachers aren’t doing a good job so they need some sort of scale that rewards performance to make them better. “It sort of implies they’ll suddenly start working harder if we give them bribes. It’s ridiculous,” she said.

Larson also wondered who would decide which teachers receive merit pay: would it be someone in administration? Or would it be based on test scores? “It brings us back to what is the purpose of public education,” she said. “It’s not something you can easily break down. What we’re doing in our schools is qualitative, not quantitative.”

To find someone even remotely supportive of the merit pay idea, Muskeg News had to go all the way to the Fraser Institute, based in Vancouver and author of the infamous school report cards, an annual performance review of schools in B.C. After these report cards are released, educators within the system usually say they’re useless.

Peter Cowley, the director of school performance studies at the Fraser Institute, did echo some of the concerns of Coons and Larson: namely, that merit pay is not a new idea, and that certain mechanics need to be established before implementing such a system. For merit pay to work, he said goals first need to be established, then measurements need to be created, and standards need to be followed when distributing merit pay to make sure the whole thing is fair & objective.

Still, Cowley said he’s supportive of the idea of merit pay, for any profession. He admitted he didn’t know what Falcon’s plan would be, but he suggested that merit pay be a reward system on top of a base salary. In other words, it should be a bonus in addition to a teacher’s pay, not a commission that would be the sole revenue.

The criticism of Falcon’s plan was made almost as soon as the words left his mouth, and Cowley said the reason for such blowback is the same as the denunciation of the Fraser Institute’s report cards: “entrenched interests” in the education system are happy with the way things are and don’t want them to change, he said.

Cowley said the end goal for any suggestions to improve the education system should be a better outcome for children in schools. “We should at least look at ideas that would likely help us,” he said.

~Written by Chris Armstrong

The 2011 assessment roll has been released by B.C. Assessments, and it shows that residential property values in Prince Rupert & Port Edward went up slightly from 2010.

Prince Rupert saw a 2.35 per cent increase in property values from 2010, while Port Edward’s residential property values rose 5.35 per cent. On the business side, Rupert’s value of business properties went up 1.59 per cent, while Port Edward’s dropped 0.38 per cent. One of the biggest changes in the province was seen in Kitimat, where property values dropped over 19 per cent. (See the table below for more assessments.)

These assessments are an estimate of property values as of July 1, 2010. The values for residential properties are calculated by real estate sales; the value of a house depends on the recent sales in the neighbourhood, as well as size, age, quality, condition, view, and, of course, location.

“Most homes in Prince Rupert are worth the same or slightly more on this year’s assessment roll than they were on the 2010 assessment roll,” said Colleen McCombe, Deputy Assessor with B.C. Assessments, in a press release. “Most home owners in both communities will see either no change or modest increases ranging up to 10 per cent.”

Table: Difference in property values in B.C., 2010-2011

Source: B.C. Assessment

The property values provided by B.C. Assessment is also the first step in determining the level of municipal taxation. After city council decides how much money will be spent in the budget, administration uses this information to calculate the tax rate for each property. That tax rate depends on the assessed property values.

Overall, the total value of properties in Rupert & Port Edward rose to $1.357 billion in 2011, up from $1.336 billion last year. Dan Rodin, the City’s chief financial officer, said values can go up either through an increase in the value of properties (market change), or an increase in the amount of inventory (non-market change). Inflation, he said, falls in the first category.

Rupertites & Port Edwardians will see how much their properties are worth, and whether their values have gone up or down, once they receive their official B.C. Assessment forms in the mail in the next few days.

~Written by Chris Armstrong