19 



Mr. Young. Well, if I heard you both right, you are asking, when 

 there is a deadlock between Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Can- 

 ada, you want someone that can get off that deadlock being a Fed- 

 eral official, but my understanding, the Federal official could only 

 apply pressure to Washington, Oregon and Alaska, it doesn't have 

 anything to do with Canada. 



Mr. Turner. If I could paraphrase the proposal; it would deter- 

 mine, first of all, a date by which a position had to be established 

 by the United States, among the U.S. section, to go forth to Can- 

 ada. That would be up front. 



The commissioners would continue to negotiate as we do now, 

 seeking consensus among ourselves on what position the United 

 States should take. As we approach the date certain and if there 

 were not concurrence among the commissioners, the Federal Gov- 

 ernment would put the position on the wall for the U.S. Section to 

 see. The U.S. Commissioners would look at that, and then would 

 sit down and see, in light of the position that has been proposed 

 by the Federal Government, can we again reach agreement, and if 

 they can, that goes forward. 



If the U.S. Commissioners cannot reach agreement, then the po- 

 sition that the Federal Government placed on the wall becomes a 

 United States position. 



Mr. Young. I have some serious reservations with that, I want 

 you to know that right off the bat, because you are dealing with 

 Canada, which is a major player, and they don't have to listen to 

 anything we do, regardless of what the Commission does. 



Mr. Turner. It would be our negotiating position. 



Mr. Young. I'c would be a negotiating position, but again — well, 

 we will talk about that later. I am not terribly excited about it. 



Mr. Meacham, regarding the equity issue which everybody refers 

 to, what kind of approaches would you use to resolve this problem? 

 We keep hearing equity, that is the big battle between Canada and 

 the United States — how would you solve it? 



Mr. Meacham. Well, I don't know that I could solve it. But the 

 way I would try and solve it is what I referred to as a prudent 

 businessman approach. I would start out by saying that the Cana- 

 dian position on equity is that every fish that is produced from an 

 egg in a Canadian stream or a Canadian hatchery is 100 percent 

 Canadian owned, wherever it may roam (or trespass). 



What we face up North, of course, is these fish going across our 

 border the size of a minnow and growing into full-size salmon that 

 we all know and enjoy today. So I viewed these as shared fish. 

 They are jointly produced, shared fish. Not owned by one country 

 or the other. 



I would think as prudent businessmen, fishermen businessmen 

 in particular, we could try and put together some positive win/win 

 solutions such as we did in our transboundary river fisheries in 

 Alaska. There the Canadians take eggs from salmon located up in 

 Canadian headwaters of the transboundary rivers. We transport 

 those eggs and put them into a hatchery in Alaska, hatch them, 

 and then put them back in rearing lakes. When they return as 

 adult salmon, they are then shared by fishermen of both countries. 

 So both countries benefit. 



