Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee.
Good morning. I'm Mike Meneer, vice-president of the Pacific Salmon Foundation. We are a federally registered non-profit committed to the sustainability of wild Pacific salmon and their ecosystems.
Our 30-year history is intrinsically linked to the federal government as we have a long-standing contribution agreement with Fisheries and Oceans Canada to manage funds from the salmon conservation stamp. For those of you who have fished in our salt water, this is the stamp that you need to keep the fish that you catch. We've also recently worked in a collaborative way with DFO on salmon science and research to better understand what's limiting the returns of our wild Pacific salmon here in British Columbia.
Our community salmon program is funded by the salmon conservation stamp and provides grants to support salmon steward volunteers through 345 community organizations. Since our founding, 35,000 volunteers across British Columbia have engaged and participated in conservation, habitat restoration, and education related to wild Pacific salmon. Volunteers take every $1 that comes to us through the stamp and turn it into $6 or $7 more through their hard work and fundraising at a local level.
Pacific salmon are a vital part of the socioeconomic well-being of western Canada, and they are integrally linked to the natural ecosystems of British Columbia and the Yukon. New federal investments in Pacific salmon have the potential to contribute significantly to future economic growth in British Columbia and the Yukon, particularly for coastal communities and first nations peoples.
For some context, it is estimated—actually not estimated but based on economic facts—that more than $2 billion a year in economic activity derives from fisheries and aquaculture in British Columbia, and a little over half of that comes from salmon-related activities in British Columbia. So this is very much still a very significant part of our economy.
Given our limited time for testimony, I will cut to the chase here on our two budget proposals. First, we are calling for the federal government to adjust the price of the federal salmon conservation stamp to $10 from $6, which will help us meet the growing demand from grassroots organizations that I referenced earlier for salmon stewardship activities.
We base this request on several factors. One, it has no direct cost to the federal budget because it's a user fee. Second, the $4 adjustment accounts for inflation because the stamp hasn't been increased in value since 1996, as well as a response for needed complexity and larger projects that the grassroots organizations are bringing to us. The adjustment would generate roughly $1 million each year in new activity, and add to that the roughly $6 million that local communities would raise as a result of those stamps that we invest.
Our second proposal is to encourage the federal government to invest $30 million in the Pacific salmon endowment fund. This is an independent society that provides key operational and strategic funding to the Pacific Salmon Foundation. The endowment was established in 2001 with a $30-million contribution from the federal government, and it's become a source of stable support for our foundation in terms of operating ongoing salmon conservation.
I coordinate fundraising for the foundation, and what it allows us to do is to tell donors that 90-plus cents of every dollar they donate goes to projects because, with the endowment, we are able to keep our lights on and operate our foundation. That is what gives us that $6-$7 of leverage that we get with the federal funds that come through the salmon stamp.
We see lots of opportunities to partner with the federal government: salmon science to help us understand how we can have more of our salmon survive and return each year, adaptation to climate change, sustainably advancing natural resources and the jobs that come with natural resource projects, first nations engagement, sustainable aquaculture, and really many of the priorities that were outlined in the Cohen commission report several years ago.
In the interest of time, let me just give you one example of what we think we can do with this $30 million in our endowment. Since its inception in 2006, the Pacific Salmon Foundation's Skeena salmon program has become a trusted and independent facilitator of people and processes. Among the results of our efforts is the Pacific Salmon Explorer. This is a new online visualization data platform that provides a much deeper understanding of the 55 unique local salmon populations in the Skeena River and all the factors that are affecting them and their conservation.
We believe there's a valuable role for the Pacific Salmon Foundation in providing independent environmental perspective on major resource development projects, like the Pacific NorthWest LNG project that was announced last week in the Skeena watershed. Whether it's coming up with good science-based decisions for planning projects, monitoring, or mitigation, all of these things need independent science and independent validation for the public to trust that they are in the best interests of Canada.
The facilitation of collaborative and independent science, monitoring, and mitigation represents the type of opportunity for federal investments in budget 2017 that we at the Pacific Salmon Foundation envision, investments that will support major economic development and jobs, while ensuring that Pacific salmon, wild salmon, are sustained for generations to come.
We've engaged with the ministers and our government caucus and other MPs who were Ottawa last week. Both of these proposals have been received favourably, and we look forward to questions from this committee and further opportunities to talk about what we and our volunteers do in British Columbia.
With that, I thank you, Mr. Chairman.