Lax Kw'alaams Loses Fishing Case

The B.C. Supreme Court has ruled against the Lax Kw'alaams Band on its claim for commercial fishing rights.

The coastal Tsimshian First Nation sought a declaration from the court that it has an aboriginal right to fish on a commercial scale for a wide variety of seafood, including salmon, halibut and herring.

The federal and provincial governments disputed the band's claim, arguing that before the arrival of Europeans, the Coast Tsimshian harvested a variety of species for sustenance, but traded only small amounts of fish, other than oolichan.

Madam Justice Deborah Satanove agreed with the Crown on that point, and ruled the trade in oolichan could not be expanded to a right to trade commercially for other species.

She also found the Crown had never given the Lax Kw'alaams a promise of commercial fishing rights or promised an exemption from limits placed on other fishers.