Thank you.

[Witness spoke in Nuuh-chah-nulth]

[English]

My name is Ken Watts, waamiiš, and I'm elected chief councillor of Tseshaht First Nation. We're on the west coast of Vancouver Island. Our community here is in Port Alberni, and our territory runs in the Alberni Inlet, much of Barkley Sound and offshore as well.

We have roughly 1,300 members. We have never ceded or surrendered our territory; however, we have a sacred responsibility to look after that territory we call our ha’houlthee. It is a gift from the creator to our hereditary chiefs. It is our responsibility as a council and a community to support them in this work in looking after Uu-a-thluke, as we call it, taking care and doing so with iisaak, respect, and recognizing that everything is one and interconnected, hish-uk ts’a-walk.

Thank you.

I don't have a lot of time, so I'll try to jump right to the point here.

I wish I could show you photos. I know it's not part of this, but I'd love to be able to show you some of the derelict and abandoned vessels in our territory, specifically within the Alberni Inlet and parts of Barkley Sound, but also to bring to your attention the issues of float homes and houseboats and this weird jurisdictional piece between the province and the federal government on this particular type of facility that's on the water that often becomes derelict and abandoned as well.

Again, the issue here for Tseshaht is really that these abandoned vessels that are left often become environmentally harmful to our territory and, obviously, many times end up sinking, producing oil spills within our territory.

This is why I think attention needs to be focused on prevention before things become abandoned, before they become derelict, and addressing them, because what we see right now here in Port Alberni and in our territory is that an issue comes up with a boat, it's left there, they wait for the boat owner to deal with it and then the boat sinks. Meanwhile, there are other people who are standing on standby who could help clean up those boats before they become an issue, so I'm really encouraging the federal government to focus on prevention here.

It's just like a car accident. When a car accident happens, we don't wait for the car owner to deal with the accident or wait for their insurance provider. It's dealt with. Send them the bill later. Boats should be treated the same way, and the government should step in, help clean them up right away and send the bill to the boat owner, not wait for them and their insurance provider to step in and fix it.

Again, I encourage you to look at laws to address issues before they become significant, as has happened here in our territory.

Also, Tseshaht First Nation has seen the support from the WCMRC, the work that they have done and the west coast marine spill response team here on the west coast. They have stepped in and been on standby waiting to deal with these derelict and abandoned boats before they become an issue.

Also, groups like Coastal Restoration Society here on the west coast have done a ton of work cleaning up here within our territories, and have done it in collaboration and in partnership with first nations such as Tseshaht.

There are also federal and provincial jurisdictional issues in terms of the locations of the jurisdictions that happen here. For Tseshaht, we have the Port Alberni Port Authority, the provincial jurisdiction and foreshore responsibility in our territory. I think it often becomes muddied waters about responsibility.

Another recommendation you'll hear from me later is about really ensuring that the responsibility to consult and work with first nations isn't just passed on to the port authority, who may, sometimes, never consult with the nations about what's happening in their own backyard. At the end of the day, the Crown still has a duty to consult, accommodate and seek the consent of the first nation and, right now, that is not happening in our territory.

There's also a head lease here in Tseshaht territory that the Port Alberni Port Authority used to have from the province of B.C., but right now, that's expired.

To date, we've had little consultation and engagement about any of our waterways within our territory, from the lakes, down the rivers, down the inlet, into our harbour; however, we are working collaboratively with some of your counterparts in Parks Canada, as the Pacific Rim National Park Reserve does operate within Tseshaht unceded territory.

Again, I think some of the actions should be around improving federal responsibilities and accountability and ensuring that there's not just an off-loading of responsibility to port authorities to work with first nations. The federal government still has the underlying responsibility.

I'll jump right to my recommendations and suggestions for the path forward.

One is investing in prevention of derelict and abandoned boats and vessels in the first place. Let's not wait until things become really bad and these boats sink and become environmental disasters in our backyard, but rather let's partner, as mentioned earlier by some other presenters, with the first nations guardian program. We have a beach keeper program here that has operated for a number of years in collaboration with Parks Canada. We have staff who are the first ones out there when something goes wrong. They're the first people who see when guests arrive at our shores and they are obviously able to provide some much-needed support in communications and training.

The second piece of that is providing training for those guardian programs to be able to deal with some of these abandoned and derelict boats.

More funds also—