Prime Minister Stephen Harper has stirred the waters among fishermen on the West Coast with a vow to end so-called race-based commercial fisheries in Canada.

Harper made the declaration in a letter published in the Calgary Herald on Tuesday.

Phil Eidsvik of the B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition.
(Richard Lam/ Canadian Press)

"In the coming months, we will strike a judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River salmon fishery and oppose racially divided fisheries programs," wrote the prime minister.
 
Non-aboriginal  fishermen are encouraged by the statement. But First Nations leaders predict a season of confrontation on the water in the wake of the prime minister's vow.

"A group called the B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition has already made threats that it intends to be on the water to disrupt our fisheries and to threaten our fishing communities," said Ernie Crey of the Sto:lo First Nation in the Fraser Valley.

But the head of the coalition, Phil Eidsvik, says the problem is the current federal Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy, which allows only First Nations to fish commercially on certain days during the salmon season.

He says if everyone is allowed to fish together on all days of a run, there's nothing to fight about.

"All the guys I talked to say it's long past time that we started to fish together again. I look forward to that. Fishing together is a good thing, not a bad thing," said Eidsvik, who ran unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate in Surrey in this year's federal election.

The Fraser River salmon fishery used to yield $200 million a season. Eidsvik says recently it's only netted $25 million, and he blames federal management for that.

The federal government introduced its Aboriginal Fisheries Strategy in 1992, in response to the landmark Supreme Court of Canada Sparrow decision in 1990 that said First Nations' rights to fish take priority.