By Chad Klassen

Former government staffer testifies about B.C.’s plan to cede control of lakes

Jan 31, 2017 | 4:28 PM

KAMLOOPS — Testimony in a civil suit launched by the Douglas Lake Cattle Company against the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club concluded on Tuesday in B.C. Supreme Court. 

The cattle company is suing the club for trespassing in a battle over access to a pair of lakes near Merritt, and court heard from a former top bureaucrat. 

Al Martin, a former Assistant Deputy Minister of Agriculture, appeared via video conference from Victoria and testified about his involvement in a briefing around the licensing and tenuring of lakes for commercial recreation fisheries, such as the Douglas Lake Ranch. 

The briefing from 2003 said that lakes surrounding the Douglas Lake property, including Minnie and Stony Lakes, “have no public road access but some have crown lakebed,” and may be accessed by travelling via creek beds or by air. 

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The government outlined three options, and settled on option three, which intended to support commercial fisheries with crown lakebeds and restrict public access. 

“The government has withheld this information from us for the last seven, eight years. Had we had this information, we probably wouldn’t be in this lawsuit,” says Rick McGowan, a director of the Nicola Valley Fish and Game Club. “The public has not been aware the government is secretly trying to create a policy to offload these public lakes to private entrepreneurs by controlling public access.”

During his testimony, however, Martin made it clear that despite more private control, the fish remained public.

The logic of the briefing, he said, was to allow private land owners to maintain control of their fishing businesses with justification to charge for public access. 

“It wouldn’t play into favour for us,” he says. “It would mean the government is prepared to give away public lakes without public consultation and First Nation consultation.”

Earl Stoessiger, a recreational fisherman, initiated many private communications about access to Minnie and Stony lakes. 

In a 2002 government document — not sent to either stoessiger nor Douglas Lake — it states there is public access to the lakes, as long as people don’t cross douglas lake land to get there.

It also said the fish in the lakes are public.

“As far as the fish that were tagged that [Douglas Lake GM Joe Gardner] has been putting in there, I’ve never caught a tagged fish in Minnie Lake or Stony Lake,” notes Stoessiger. 

As for the Douglas Lake Ranch, lawyer Evan Cooke asked Martin if this would be seen as a “sweetheart deal for the Douglas Lake Cattle Company?” Martin replied that it was part of a broader policy shift and giving more control to the ranch seems the most appropriate option.

Closing arguments in the case will begin on Wednesday at B.C. Supreme Court in Kamloops.