ee OS eS aS TT FRIDAY, MAY 28, 1971 13Y 132" 30" a mam oon eat Sa A A Vol. 32, No. 21 CANADA MUST ASSERT ITS : HTS IN COAST WATERS Fishermen demand SEO PRINTT GNION) € TRADES] Une eT 5 ol 50 en \ 7 46 1 162 \e\ f Se ~ ue aM Tig, ‘*, @ H rand of SB Ere acrion trom awa PRINCE OF A B09 SONGS. 3 : Bea ee gat nest Bee ree 188 B.C.’s fishermen have wired the Federal ca Ry THG)S8 186 2. vetlow Rin? Sf ONE i, government demanding ‘‘the strongest possible action”’ e) x 7 qqpertens S627 not? QQ) . : : 3 Nae Ke@ns 190 "Lord to protect Canadian fisheries craft and to prevent Oo 93 SN ae C “ ee ho t y a Plas! ALASKA__ ip A pre tiene ong further violations of Canadian sovereignty. The United Be ee Neste Zayas! Fishermen and Allied Workers Union warned in its wire sar An ‘acon Breaker : oe # to Ottawa that unless forthright action was taken a ee! \o" ne Canadian national rights will be in jeopardy. "29 136 = 13°N Se es N har duc rtsed Bi g”2™ the Ma “. fish cu Tishb, tte, s in which U.S. Coast Guard cutter fooriy Henined B.C.-Alaska boundary when ith its guns. Cross shows approximate Y 21 issue of The Fisherman, this map sk Sat Anthony J, Fishing vessel was south of the cle S. ven piace her under arrest, and threatened her w PT needs your help! | : ial appeal on its trong {t's not often that the PT makes a financia bee Urgent 8° But we are doing it now because the sl With 9 d about $5,000 to = | ech our: Objective of $19,500. But even if we reach our Diective | f° it will not be enough. in printi COsts 2 have just been tora of a large increase in printing ' ct was totally unexpected. Nation «>, 2" urgent appeal to o More! W a ay! If you have already : “P US go well over the top.- nly a few days to go we still nee readers. Send your | sapuated — give a little This action came in the wake of last week’s events in which a U.S. Coast Guard cutter tried to place the halibut boat Anthony J and its crew under arrest in Canadian waters south of the B.C.-Alaska border. In a front page story the May 21 edition of The Fisherman says the crew, who are members of the UFAWU, were 2% miles south of Cape Chacon on the Ca- nadian side of the boundary when the U.S. cutter Cape Romain ordered them to proceed to Ketchikan-under arrest. “Tn a six hour period later that day the cutter harassed, tried to board and then trained its guns on the Canadian vessel. The entire ‘incident took place in Canadian waters up to 20 miles south of the boundary and over a course which totalled a run of nearly 40 miles from the site of the first attempted arrest,” says The Fisherman report. After reports of the U.S. chase hit the news, the first response from a U.S. official was that the skipper of the halibut boat had ‘“imagined”’ the evgnts and had “misinterpreted what was going on.”’ The U.S. official said that the Canadian vessel had been pursued into ‘‘international waters’’ and denied that the cutter threatened to fire on the Anthony J. The following day Lt. Comdr. E.E. Schneider, Coast Guard . intelligence chiéf at Juneau, confirmed that the U.S. cutter “was told to prepare to shoot, and did prepare to shoot.”’ The U.S. does not recognize ‘critical of Ottawa for taking a the boundary as established by a tribunal in 1903 (see accompany- ing map), and as defined on all charts of the area. It contends that U.S. jurisdiction extends to the three mile limit even when it encroaches into Canadian waters. What Coast Guard officials claim as “international waters’’ are actually B.C. coastal waters. The union has charged that repeated concessions by the federal government to the US., and failure to enforce the boundary set by the 1903 Alaska Tribunal are at the root of the problem. It demands that Ottawa take a strong stand to assert Canada’s jurisdiction in the area. For many years B.C. halibut boats have fished right up to the boundary without interference. Last fall U.S. authorities seized the Prince Rupert vessel Clipper 2 in the area and her owner fined $3,000 for allegedly fishing in US. waters. The U.S. prosecutor at the time bragged that a precedent had been established “strengthening our claim that these are U.S. territorial waters and not open to foreign fisher- men either from Canada or " elsewhere.”’ At the time the UFAWU was hands-off attitude in the Clipper 2 case. Last week’s incident Suggests a renewed drive by Washington to challenge Cana- dian rights in the area and to enforce the “precedent” of the Bie Clipper 2 case. - ie See ASSERT RIGHTS, pg. 12 :