Meet Our Speakers - Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson Gidahl-Guudsdllyaay

Name: Terri-Lynn Williams-Davidson Gidahl-Guudsdllyaay

Titles: Principal Lawyer at White Raven Law Corporation; Haida Musician with Raven Calling Productions; Author

Education: Bachelor of Laws, 1995; and Bachelor of Science (Computer Science), 1990; Master of Laws in progress.

Q: Haida Gwaii is a very unique Archipelago off the coast of British Columbia. The area of Gwaii Haanas, at the southernmost tip of the island, currently operates under a unique co-governance model. Gwaii Haanas is jointly managed by the Haida Nation and the federal government pursuant to a number of agreements, including the Gwaii Haanas Agreement, and the Gwaii Haanas Marine Agreement. Can you speak to the significance of these agreements for the Haida people? Are there current limitations to the co-governance model?

The main significance is that they provide a way to protect Haida Aboriginal title and rights, and exercise laws over the land base in the absence of the completion of the Haida title litigation, or recognition of Haida title through a negotiated agreement. The Haida people recognized early on the value of protecting Gwaii Haanas. As we couldn’t agree on who owns the land and who has jurisdiction over it, this was a creative way to find commonalities with the government and leave aside the problematic issues until later, allowing us to go to work implementing management over Gwaii Haanas.

The Haida Nation started protecting 14 areas on Haida Gwaii from industrial exploitation in 1972. Gwaii Haanas was one of them. It was the first one to be protected formally by Canada.

Another important thing to note is that each party, the Haida Nation and the Crown, have their own designations, and therefore each is operating under their own laws. This ensures that by entering into collaborative management, the Haida Nation is not recognizing that Canada has power or authority to exercise their rights over Gwaii Haanas. This implements concurrent exercises of jurisdiction.

The limitation is that the legislation has not evolved to recognize concurrent jurisdiction or Indigenous laws, so technically, under Canada’s laws, the Minister of Parks has the ultimate authority. The Archipelago Management Board (AMB), created to manage Gwaii Haanas, operates by consensus. The AMB is made up of equal representation from the Haida Nation and Parks Canada. Since the Gwaii Haanas Marine Agreement, the AMB also has representatives from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). When the Haida designated Gwaii Haanas, the Haida also designated the oceans because, of course, what happens on land affects sea and vice-versa. But the Crown did not protect the marine areas until recently.

Only once has the AMB not reached consensus on a pressing issue. As such, in practice, it has been a good model, except for those rare instances where consensus is not reached and the Crown proceeds unilaterally, such as in the herring litigation (Haida Nation v Canada (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans), 2015 FC 290). Of importance in that case was that Parks Canada agreed with the Haida representatives on the AMB, that the herring fishery should not be opened. Parks Canada’s evidence was helpful to us in the litigation. 

Q: How integral was the Gwaii Haanas Marine Agreement in obtaining the interim injunction against the herring fishery in Haida Nation v Canada (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans), 2015 FC 290? 

It was very important. The language the judge used came directly from the management plan that both parties had agreed to for Gwaii Haanas. Both parties recognize the ecological importance of the area and commit to a better way of managing Gwaii Haanas.

In the herring litigation, we argued that a decision to unilaterally open the herring fishery, would undermine the reconciliation progress and the relationship between the parties. The court agreed with us. That evidence was not only advanced by the Haida, but also by Parks Canada, who had invested over 25 years of working together by that point.

Q: Do the Gwaii Haanas agreements represent the most important reconciliation effort over the years?

Yes, Gwaii Haanas is a very important ecosystem on the island of Haida Gwaii, and protection of this region continues to be integral.

Q: Has there been any indication that there will be efforts to re-open the herring fishery that was the subject of the litigation in 2015? Have there been other recent efforts to increase commercial fishing in and around Haida Gwaii?

After the herring injunction was granted, both Parties committed to developing a herring re-building plan. That plan is still in progress as the fishery is not yet sufficiently rebuilt, and as such, there have not been any efforts to re-open it in Haida Gwaii.

With respect to the status of other fisheries, I would not say they are increasing. However, it is important to note that a large amount of the commercial fisheries in BC come from Haida Gwaii, especially high value fisheries like sablefish, and halibut. Around $84million worth of fish come from Haida Gwaii every year. The economic significance of these fisheries makes negotiations for a shift to collaborative management very difficult; it makes it is hard to bring DFO and the Crown around to finding ways to collaboratively manage the fishing. 

Despite this reality, we have made preliminary steps with the Bowie Seamount, an underground volcano located 180m off the Northern tip of Haida Gwaii, which is prime habitat for sablefish. A collaborative management agreement (modelled after the Gwaii Haanas approach) helped with, first, underwater monitoring to assess the impact of fisheries on this sensitive area. With that data, we reached agreement to shut down the sablefish fishery.

Q: Can you describe the Haida’s traditional food landscape? Do people have the opportunity to feed themselves off the land, or does a lot of food have to be brought in to Haida Gwaii?

As we are an island population, the bulk of our traditional diet comes from the oceans. There are no large mammals other than deer, which were introduced, that form part of our diet. Really, we’ve eaten every marine species and they are all important to us. We access all of the marine environment for food, social, and ceremonial purposes. There are a couple of species that have been overfished and are no longer part of our landscape, specifically abalone. This is a relatively recent development, since even when I was a child, abalone was common in our diets. There is also far less herring now than there was historically. It is the commercial fisheries aspect of Haida rights that has not been recognized, and which has been impacted by the fishing regimes imposed by DFO.

The part that is most concerning for food security is fresh fruit and dairy products, which have made their way into the diet, but were never there traditionally (other than berries and crab apples). Produce is very expensive on an island, and people have to participate in the wage economy to access it.

Today, almost everybody spends time collecting food and putting it away for the whole year. The majority of Haida people still rely on their traditional diets and food. Traditionally, we also had large community gardens for potatoes, as they go well with seafood! We have a certain seed called the Haida potato, which can withstand blight from rain. Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, we have seen an increase in the number of people gardening.

On Haida Gwaii, there are also settler people who have large gardens and raise livestock. This occurs on private lands, which are not covered under the reconciliation agreement with BC, nor the Gwaii Haanas agreements, and as such are not subject Haida management.

Q: On April 19, 2021, the BC Court of Appeal released its decision in Ahousaht Indian Band v Canada (Attorney General), reconfirming that the federal regulatory system imposed by DFO constitutes an infringement of the Nuu-chah-nulth Nations’ right to a commercial fishery. Can you comment on your involvement in this case, and what this victory means?  

The Haida Nation’s intervention was focussed on correcting the previous error of law that held that reconciliation is part of the right; rather, reconciliation is part of the infringement and justification stage. We argued that it was wrong to limit the Ahousaht’s right based on the need to incorporate 3rd party interests.

The government argued that there were limits to which the Crown could accommodate the rights of the Ahousaht Nation. By way of example, the argument was that if there are 20 licenses to fish halibut and 18 of them are owned by settler people, the Crown does not have a duty beyond the 2 licenses, as that is all they have left. We argued that reconciliation cannot always be pain free, and that sometimes the Crown will have to buy back licenses to meet the needs of the Nation. 

Q: Can you introduce our readers to some of the Supernatural Beings that inhabit the marine environments of Haida Gwaii?

In the Haida worldview, everything is a supernatural being. The oceans are a supernatural realm in and of themselves. Because the oceans and land areas are governed by Supernatural Beings, they are not just places from which you can simply take all of the fish you want; rather, you must pay respect.

In the oceans around Haida Gwaii, the main Supernatural Being is called the-One- in-the-Sea. Anything you put into the ocean goes into that Supernatural Being’s home. We have to ask permission and pay respect to that Supernatural Being through a reciprocal exchange before taking things from the oceans. Traditionally we gave flicker feathers, tobacco, or cedar bark to the ocean beings for the privilege of taking some of the seafood. Another Supernatural Being is Low-Tide-Woman; she  takes care of everything in the low tide zone. We need to show respect to her before we can take things from that area, such as clams, sea urchins, or octopus.

In my book, Out of Concealment: Female Supernatural Beings of Haida Gwaii, I make the point that the trees are our sisters, and that reefs are Supernatural Beings, as are mountains. When you start thinking of things as your relatives, rather than inanimate objects, that changes how you interact with place. A greater part of my work and other people’s work also involves ensuring that Haida values are taught more to younger children. That is part of the objective with the children’s book, Magical Beings of Haida Gwaii; making sure that kids see the relationship with the land and sea around us.