While the trip to Steveston was exciting and fun at some points, I was much more introspective in the cannery. Learning about the historic treatment of Asian Canadians was especially difficult in the wake of recent anti-Asian sentiments during the pandemic. I felt extremely angry seeing the abhorrent actions taken against Chinese and Japanese immigrants. It is important to reflect on where we came from because there is no way to move forward without it. For example, Japanese Canadians were appreciated as skilled fishers, but after the bombing at Pearl Harbour, they were ripped from their communities and put into internment camps despite having no connection to the Japanese government. This reminds me of how Chinese Canadians (and other groups of Asian Canadians who are treated as a monolith) have been used as a scapegoat for people’s frustration during the pandemic despite having no connection to the Chinese government’s handling of the early stages of COVID-19.

When one of my classmates asked me how long I thought I could last as a cannery worker, I responded that I would do what I had to, just like the people who were stuck working there. It wasn’t her fault, but I found myself getting a bit frustrated at my classmate for joking around at this point in the tour because in reality, neither of us would have to work there as well-educated white women. In fact, it seems that the products which are made cheap by violating human rights often make their way to store shelves for people like us to consume. As we have learned throughout the class, there are still thousands of people working in conditions similar to what we saw at the cannery. This is not unique to the fishing industry, but I think that the fishing industry is a great example of how human rights can intersect with conservation. This raises the question that we have been investigating this term: how can you attempt to ameliorate environmental pressure and improve human living standards simultaneously? Nowadays, Canada has certain labour standards that it is able to subvert by outsourcing labor through complicated supply chains that go through other countries with more relaxed labour standards. Similarly, Eric taught us that Canada can’t use domestic reduction fisheries for aquaculture feed, so they often use the products of bottom trawling or other poor fishing practices as aquaculture feed. This line of thought reminds me of a point that Dr. Sarah Foster made during our ecolabelling tutorial: If Canada would raise the minimum acceptable standard of the products we are importing, then greenwashing would be less of an issue because the most detrimental products would not be sold in the first place. Given the fact that many people aren’t even aware of the issues with these products and sometimes can’t afford to make the more ethical choice, I think that this is the better option than just relying on consumer choice. So, I think that this strategy could apply to both the environmental and labour standards of Canadian imports to improve our impact on the world.

Another instance of inefficient management that I learned about from Eric was the way that observers function of Canadian vessels. Even if observers see something, the logbooks are treated as legal documents, so their ability to influence the outcome of a situation is very limited. Additionally, if they do speak up, they are often putting their life in danger and if they try to take pictures, their device will be thrown overboard. This leads to many rule breaches and the observers do not even have a satellite phone, so they are completely alone. One example that stood out to me was that nobody reports marine mammal bycatch despite the fact that their nets are certainly large enough to fit marine mammals. By leaving out data, the models used to predict our impact on the environment aren’t useful. My favorite point Eric made was that even some fishermen acknowledge that herring stocks should not be fished, but the weight quotas mean that a certain amount of biomass is going to be removed from the ocean regardless of whether they fish it or not. Since you can make one million dollars in fifteen minutes from herring fishing, they continue to fish it despite the pressure it puts on the ecosystem.

While the docks were filled with heavy gear and the sound of Nickleback, the park was teeming with wildlife and ambient pan flute music played by one of the visitors. Visiting the Steveston Fisherman’s Memorial was not as impactful as it could have been if I had visited the cannery first. I didn’t understand the context of the area, so the monument was less emotional for me. Despite this, the memorial was beautiful and it was nice to see that family members still leave flowers on it. This park was very different from False Creek in that the coastline was much softer, with tons of insects buzzing around the intertidal. There were seagrasses, logs, and tons of seabirds. We were even able to spot a great blue heron! Even with the more natural coastline, we found many examples of garbage in the park, including some ghost gear washed up on the beach.

In summary, this trip was an excellent reinforcement of many of the course themes we have been working on this semester. I want to continue to learn about the injustices in Canada that are being perpetuated today and the terrible conditions in the cannery are a great reminder to be mindful of the products you are buying. However, during our lunch break, I tried eating seafood for the first time in many years and it was nice to know that it at least fit the Oceanwise standards. That was a nice experience to have at the end of the trip because not everyone can choose not to eat fish, but if we make fisheries more sustainable, they won’t have to.