A Steveston fisherman has been fined almost $37,000 after he pleaded guilty to fishing in a conservation area known as “Canada’s Galapagos.”
Stefan Grega, 79, pleaded guilty to five offences of fishing in a closed area — Gwaii Haanas, a protected area around Haida Gwaii — catching fish in the protected area, being in possession of fish caught in contravention of the Fisheries Act and selling the fish.
Grega was fishing between May 15 and May 24, 2022. However, on May 20 and 21, he was in the Gwaii Haanas National Conservation Area and fished six sets, which the judge deemed “accidental.”
Grega wouldn’t have been in the conservation area, however, if not for some bad “intel” and poor weather, his defence lawyer John Skapski explained during the sentencing hearing on April 29.
Federal Crown prosecutor Chloe Sauder countered that “ignorance of the law is not an excuse.”
Skapski told the court fishers are monitored electronically at all times, and they have to hand in a hard drive with this information after every trip.
“They know they’re being watched — they’re trying not to go into these places because they know they’ll get caught,” he said.
Before setting out fishing in May 2022, Grega had spoken to someone who had been at Carpenter Bay fishing, so he thought he could fish there as well, Skapski said.
However, it was near the protected area, and when the weather turned bad, he sought a safer place and ended up in the protected area, Skapski explained to the court, going into the area “blissfully unaware.”
“If he’d turned left out of Carpenter Bay, we wouldn’t be here,” Skapski said.
Sauder referred to the area Grega was caught illegally fishing, Gwaii Haanas, as “Canada’s Galapagos.” It's a protected area on the southern half of Haida Gwaii, about 100 kilometres off the northern coast of 小蓝视频
“These areas are designed to be pristine spaces and left to be untouched,” Sauder said.
The Crown prosecutor and the defence came to an agreed statement of facts on the offences, but they disagreed on the fines and penalty.
Sauder argued Grega should be fined the full value of the fish, which was about $17,000. Crown was also seeking $45,000 in fines.
However, Justice Derek Mah agreed with the defence’s position, noting Grega didn’t own his own fishing quota, so 58 per cent of the sales went to other parties.
Mah meted out $30,000 in fines and gave a penalty of just under $7,000, which was the “gross value” that Grega received for the illegally caught fish.
In his decision, Mah said sentencing must send a “strong message” that illegal fishing will result in a “substantial penalty” well beyond the cost of doing business.
Mah said the implications of Grega’s offences were ecological, cultural and social.
“The public must know there’s a significant penalty for fishing in closed areas,” he said. “Given that there were not sufficient numbers of fisheries officers to monitor compliance, it was a low likelihood of being subject to inspection and, as a result, those people who were in the industry were required to follow the rules.”
Mah said he agreed when Grega was fishing in the protected area, it was accidental, and the boundaries weren’t marked on his charts.
“However, Mr. Grega had an obligation to ensure accidental mishaps of this nature did not occur and he could have taken the simple and inexpensive step of marking the boundaries himself on a paper map,” Mah said.
Grega had one prior conviction and eight warnings, which Mah said were aggravating circumstances.
“His prior record should have informed him of the need to be very diligent to ensure that he did not fall on the wrong side of the line,” Mah said.
But Mah said Grega was “genuinely remorseful” and pleaded guilty, both of which were mitigating factors.
Grega has to pay half of his fines by Oct. 31 and the other half by April 30, 2026.
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