HOUSE OF COMMONS

CONSTITUENCY OFFICE OTTAWA OFFICE
4871 OELTA ST, CANADA AM 679 CONFEDERATION BLDG,

DELTA, B.C, HOUSE OF COMMONS
OTTAWA, ONTARIO

va 279 JOHN CUMMINS, M.P. KIA 0A6

FAX: (604) 940-0041 DELTA TEL: (813) 992-2957

FAX: (613) 992-3589
OTTAWA, ON
KIA 0A6

October 7, 1994

Mayor Len Traboulay
City of Port Coquitiam
2580 Shaughnessy
Port Coquitlam, BC
V3C 2A8

Dear Mayor Traboulay and Council:

Within the last month the Minister of Fisheries has acknowledged the loss of some
3 million salmon on the Fraser River. The Minister's response was first to appoint
an internal review to be conducted by senior management within the department.
After leaked Fisheries enforcement reports detailed the department ’s diminished
efforts in enforcement, the Minister appointed a so-called Independent Review
Board.

On a careful reading of the Minister’s announcement it became clear that the
review was anything but an independent and comprehensive review of his
department. The so-called Independent Review Board is to be driven by a
departmental management team’s internal review and advice.

The Minister's review is simply another in-house study conducted for the most
part by persons already advising the Fisheries’ Department on its operations. Their
report will be no more effective or revealing than the Pearse-Larkin Report into the
1982 disaster on the Fraser River, the Peat Marwick Report into the
Rawson/Flumian expense accounts, or the 1994 Gardner Pinfold Report on the
Aboriginal Fishing Strategy.

We desperately need a judicial inquiry into the management and protection of the
salmon resource; an inquiry that can actually get to the bottom of the trouble in
the Fisheries’ Department - a public and independent inquiry under the Inquizes

Act having the power to subpoena witnesses and take testimony under oath. 006;
.Y) Th,

safltVbb

eM = OCT 141994

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