Fisheries Committee on April 18th, 2024

[Bryce Bekar]

I can do that, yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you for that, Mr. Hanley.

We'll now go to Madam Desbiens for six minutes or less, please.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

I can give Mr. Hanley a few minutes to finish his question and receive an answer without any issues.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Go ahead.

[Brendan Hanley, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Bryce, actually, if I have a bit more time—merci beaucoup—I would ask you to elaborate a little bit on the Wolf Creek project and the recent steps that you've been taking. I guess you're kind of moving away from Wolf Creek to a more successful area.

Maybe you could talk about that more successful area.

[Bryce Bekar]

Mr. Chair, the Yukon Fish and Game Association has partnered with Yukon Energy and the hatchery for as long as I can remember. I'm sure it predates my time.

From my understanding, the Wolf Creek release has not shown, through tagged fish, the same return that we have seen in the Michie Creek area, where the spawning fish return in a lot more abundance.

Through the Wolf Creek area, in bringing in families and children, we'd bring out 10,000 in the past, as I said, and about 2,500 more recently. We put on a barbecue and we talk about fish, about the importance of salmon in the ecosystem and about the importance of salmon culturally and because of the biodiversity that they create.

Moving to Michie Creek was the recommendation of the former hatchery manager, Lawrence Vano, who has recently retired.

We look forward to working with YEC going forward. They've really done a good job of looking at where it's most likely the fish would come back. That was the reason for moving, from my understanding.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

You have four minutes, Madam Desbiens.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Bekar, thank you for your response. This will give me the chance to move on to my next topic.

It's good to hear you talk about families and your interest in passing on knowledge and traditions, as well as your approach to the resource and its protection.

In this case, is climate change a major factor altering the resource, or are you concerned about something else? For example, is there any pinniped predation in your area? In Quebec, we have heard that pinnipeds even swim up rivers behind salmon. Does this type of phenomenon also occur in your area?

[Bryce Bekar]

My understanding is that the waters have changed over time. The changing water temperatures can affect the travel of the fish. Again, it's not my area of expertise; we're just going by what we've read and seen through various studies. The change in water temperatures could be making the fish look at different spawning areas. It could also be bringing in disease that is not natural to the colder water.

On the predation side, for the tiny fish that are running up and down the Yukon River to try to make it to the ocean so that they can survive for five, seven or eight years and come back, there are many factors there, from otters to bigger fish, such as northern pike, and various things like that.

As I mentioned earlier, the larger, older fish used to be the ones that made it back up. In those cases, I would have to assume that an 80-pound or 90-pound salmon would have fewer predators than a 10-pound or a 20-pound salmon.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Yes. I understand.

What solutions would you suggest to the committee to help it make strong recommendations that will both maintain and increase the resource?

[Bryce Bekar]

Again, I can't offer scientific recommendations, but from the recommendations of us with boots on the ground, we are very much willing to work with all of our partners along the Yukon River to try to remove any of the obstacles. Fish passage is one of the large ones that I've been reading about lately. If a fish is unable to get over the dam, then obviously, we don't see the fish make it back to where they're supposed to spawn and vice versa. If they can't come back the other way, then they are not going to be able to return to the ocean. By dams, I mean beaver dams and even changes in rivers that have happened due to the way the river flows. Maybe there's a washout or some permafrost heaves or something that have let go and changed the flow of the river.

For any physical work, the Fish and Game Association has the ability to round up people who love to get out and work towards improving the environment and work towards the generations of tomorrow to make sure that they have all of the great things that we have today. We want them to enjoy the same resources, hopefully in abundance, in the future.

[Caroline Desbiens, Bloc, Beauport—Côte-de-Beaupré—Île d’Orléans—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madam Desbiens.

We'll now go to Ms. Barron for six minutes or less, please.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bekar, for being here.

Thank you for all the responses that you've provided. I particularly appreciated your point talking about the importance of education and about how, if you can't fish today, you need to look to tomorrow. Also, talking about wanting to go into schools and being part of the solution are all such important points to be made at this time with this agreement for us to be able to move forward.

One of the things I was thinking about was some of the work that we've done as a committee. We did one study on seafood labelling and knowing how it was fished, where it's from, what's in the actual package and so on. As you said, many people are relying on grocery stores to purchase seafood now.

Is that something that comes to mind for you with what you're seeing in the grocery stores? Is it clear when you're at the grocery store what people are buying? Whether it's local, farmed or wild, are these factors being taken into consideration or even available to those who are purchasing seafood at the grocery store?

[Bryce Bekar]

Personally, I don't typically buy fish at the grocery store, but when I walk by, my understanding is that you'll see wild Atlantic salmon or wild Pacific salmon. I have not seen it specifically say whether they're farmed or not farmed or how they were caught.

In the Yukon, we have a real benefit of being so close to Alaska. Yukon and Alaska have what's called a reciprocal fishing licence. In Alaska, you can come to the Yukon, and you can purchase a fishing licence for the same price as if you were a Yukon resident. In Alaska, we can do the same and go over and purchase a fishing licence as if we were an Alaskan resident.

From my experience, a lot of people who are looking for salmon in the Yukon will go down to either Haines, Alaska, or Skagway, Alaska, which is between one hour and a half to four hours, depending where you go, and try to harvest fish on their own. As for knowing where it came from and how they caught it, I find that a lot of Yukoners find it important how they got their food and whether it's wild game or fish. The ethics behind it is important, as well as the harvesting of it in the most humane way.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

I can't agree more.

Can you elaborate more on that education piece and whether you feel it's an important piece of the work in making sure that it's talked about in schools. It's important to have that knowledge and the generational learning that is being passed on to youth in the Yukon.

Can you share more information around the education piece?

[Bryce Bekar]

Yes. As I mentioned, from the education perspective, being able to fish and actually take your child out and sit on the side of a riverbank, whether it's for fly-fishing or traditional baitcasting fishing or, from the first nations perspective, netting fish, is something that's really hard to replace. My kids are both grown-ups now, but they both grew up out on the land with us. They took these values with them.

With education, we can continue to bring that importance, especially in this case of the chinook moratorium. While we can't fish for chinook, we still do have the ability to fish in other places. It may not be for chinook salmon, but it may be for sockeye if there's a good run somewhere. The Yukon Fish and Game Association will work toward building with other partners—first nations and other NGOs and government—on what is the best way.

As we've just heard from Mr. Gotch, there is a first nation—it's still early days, so I haven't heard everything on it—that's really trying to build something that focuses on the importance of fish in culture, fish in the ecosystem, and fish in general. Through various seminars and little classrooms and stuff like that—I'm sorry, but I can't think of the word right now—we promote education on all species in the Yukon currently.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you.

I have only a minute left, so perhaps I'll ask you this. One of the components of this agreement is that Alaska will continue to minimize the incidental harvest of chinook salmon in the fisheries in the main stem of the Yukon River and maintain efforts to reduce marine catches and bycatches of Yukon River–origin chinook salmon. I'm asking this because you were talking about how there's that reciprocal agreement in place.

How realistic is it, or what do you foresee as some of the challenges, in terms of specifically reducing Yukon River-origin chinook salmon as bycatch when people are out fishing?

[Bryce Bekar]

Personally, I believe it's difficult to reduce some of the bycatch, as nets aren't selective. They're a lot like “whatever comes in may not go out”. I can't really speak to the bycatch or the commercial fishery side. We've done a lot of research on the first nations fishery, and really support the way the subsistence fishing goes, but I'm sorry, I honestly can't speak much to the commercial side.

We've heard the bycatch thing. It's one of these buzzwords out there. I'm sorry, but I can't speak to how detrimental that is or not.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Ms. Barron.

That concludes that stretch. What I would like to do, with the permission of the committee, is to give one question to either Mr. Small or Mr. Arnold and then one question to Mr. Hardie to finish off.

Time is ticking.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

I will give my time to Mr. Perkins, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Well, it's not time; it's a question.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Since I have the floor, I'm going to move my motion that was put on notice with regard to the elver fishery.

As we know, there's been an issue in that the department claimed that they were closing the fishery so that they could arrest the supply chain of exporters and buyers. None of those have been made, so I'd like to move the following motion—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Before you go on, Mr. Perkins, I'll let the witness go.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Sure. If Mr. Kelloway wants to ask his question first before I do this, I'm fine with that.