FORT FRANCES — Municipal and federal representatives are encouraged by a recent sit-down meeting to discuss the ongoing concerns surrounding the exploitation of fishing in the district, though they are also disappointed in key absences around the table.
Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP Marcus Powlowski and Fort Frances mayor Andrew Hallikas were both part of a sit-down round table discussion involving several area enforcement organizations and First Nations to discuss concerns surrounding American fishing guides in Canadian waters – namely that they may allegedly be circumnavigating work permit requirements and taking more fish than they and their clients are allowed to.
Local fishing guides and camps have long voiced their concerns surrounding this matter, in addition to the loss of revenue for the area as American anglers fish Canadian waters without contributing to the local economy.
The issue came to a head earlier this summer as a group of concerned individuals within the industry raised the issue with the federal and provincial governments.
Powlowski held a previous meeting this summer to discuss the issue with local anglers, guides and resort owners, but the most recent meeting, held Thursday, Aug. 22, at the Fort Frances Civic Centre, was intended to bring together organizations and municipal and First Nation partners in order to get a handle on where things currently stand in terms of enforcement and reciprocity, and figure out where to go from here.
While both Powlowski and Hallikas felt that the meeting was productive, they also expressed disappointment over the two organizations who were not at the table.
“I was disappointed that both CBSA and MNR, although invited, chose not to attend,” Powlowski said.
“They’re both important organizations dealing with this issue. It would have been, I think, very helpful for them to hear from the enforcement agencies and the Treaty #3 people who are here and the Fort Frances mayor and myself as to the nature of the problem and some possible solutions.”
Hallikas echoed Powlowski’s disappointment in the agencies who had been invited to attend but did not show, adding that he is intending to write a letter to the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry to express that sentiment.
“I was quite disappointed that the Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry didn’t send a representative to the meeting,” he said.
“They have a significant presence in the town of Fort Frances so it wouldn’t have been that difficult to send some staff. But the reason that I’m disappointed is that at the last NOMA (Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association) conference, I asked the Honourable Graydon Smith [the Minister of Natural Resources and Forestry] a question about this publicly... both the Honourable Graydon Smith and our own Honourable Minister Rickford responded to the question and they responded positively, saying it was a concern for them and they were going to look into increasing enforcement, and then we have a meeting of law enforcement, and the ministry doesn’t attend.”
Outside of the missing representatives, both the MP and mayor said that the remaining parties held productive talks around finding ways to address the issue. Among those at the table were the Ontario Provincial Police, Treaty #3 Police Services, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Couchiching First Nations, Grand Council Treaty #3, the Town of Fort Frances, and Powlowski himself.
Several different methods of addressing the issue, or at least offsetting the economic impact, were raised at the meeting, and one of the most significant ideas was to work towards re-opening the long-shuttered RCMP outpost in Fort Frances.
“I think there was general agreement with the idea that we should be contemplating reopening an RCMP post in Fort Frances,” Powlowski said.
“There’s only three RCMP people between White River and the Manitoba border. And there used to be 23. There used to be a border post, there used to be posts in Fort Frances and Kenora that have been closed, but certainly I will advocate that the RCMP post in Fort Frances be reopened.”
In addition to bringing more RCMP presence to the area, both Powlowski and Hallikas said the other two enforcement agencies that did attend the meeting were onboard with working more closely together in the future to help bridge the gaps that any one organization on its own might face.
“Treaty #3 Police, OPP, RCMP all do have boats on Lake of the Woods, Rainy Lake, and they are different jurisdictions,” Powlowki said.
“OPP for example is checking that people aren’t drinking and driving on their baots. Treaty #3 Police has its own area and laws they’re enforcing. And the RCMP, which does work with CBSA, they’re the ones who would address the issue as to whether American guides have work permits to work on the Canadian side, whether Americans are following the rules and not going ashore.
"There is greater scope for, OPP for example, inquiring as to whether people have work permits or going ashore and then reporting them [to the RCMP], even though they may not be able to lay charges. These groups could all work together to collectively enforce the laws, and they already do work together.”
An agreement to work more closely together is one way that Powlowski said he could see the issue of area addressed, noting that these organizations all have to cover an expansive geographical area with limited resources, and pooling them together could help each carry out their duties more efficiently.
However, bringing an increased RCMP presence to the area is only one of the ways that the issue could begin to be addressed.
Hallikas noted another method could be as simple as increasing the non-resident license fees to help ensure that more money is coming into the Canadian economy from American anglers.
Powlowski said that a differential fee could be applied so that non-residents who are not staying at a Canadian camp or resort would pay more for a license than those who did stay in the country and support the economy.
However, both said that another issue that needs to be addressed on a federal level comes down to reciprocity – or rather, the lack thereof.
“There’s this issue of reciprocity,” Hallikas said.
“The law says that American guides can work in Canada and Canadian guides can work in the States, but in practicality, American guides are working in Canada in large numbers and when our guides apply for work permits to work in the States, they are denied. They are flatly denied. Something needs to be done about that.”
Powlowski echoed the mayor, noting that the two countries do have agreements in place to allow for work permits to be issued from one country to residents of the other in a reciprocal fashion, but in practice it is rarely done in an equal fashion.
“This is part of the immigration rules, and this goes back to the NAFTA agreement,” he said.
“The reality is there’s no reciprocity. There are American guides coming over here. Most Canadians don’t go to the States to fish, but even if they wanted to, they can’t get work permits.
"So I think another way that I intend to address it is suggesting that Canada ought to enforce reciprocity and that we ought to be counting the number of work permits that are going to American guides, and how many are going to Canadian guides as a way of ensuring that we’re not basically allowing Americans to exploit our resources.”
While the meeting may not have produced instant results to address the myriad issues local anglers, guides, and resort owners are saying they are facing, the sit-down was still productive in its own way.
Powlowski said he will be taking these issues and ideas to the federal government to fight for changes and improvements, while Hallikas praised the positivity and collaborative spirit that was shown from all attending parties.
“It was a good meeting,” he said.
“I give Marcus and his staff a lot of credit for organizing it, but also I’m greatly appreciative of the presence and the effort that local law enforcement had to attend. The OPP were here and contributed a lot to the meeting, as did Treaty #3 Police, as did the RCMP who came all the way from Thunder Bay.
"So that was amazing to me, and I’m grateful for that. And then I’m really appreciative of the tremendous response that we got from area First Nations, from our neighbours Couchiching, their chief and council, and from Grand Council Treaty #3 sending such a such a really good contingent, and all of them contributed a great deal in terms of the discussion at the meeting.
"It was a very good meeting, and now we’ll look to see what kind of results they get from that meeting.”
Fort Frances Times / Local Journalism Initiative
