Yes.
Evidence of meeting #3 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was companies.
Evidence of meeting #3 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was companies.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
The industry's position, and that of most reasonable observers, is that the problem is in the lake.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
And the problem in the lake could be summarized threefold: one, there's a predator fish, a pikeminnow, that attacks the hatchery sockeye and what not that are released into the lake and consumes great quantities of them. That's problem one.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
And problem three is that Cultus Lake is a highly developed recreational lake with boats and Sea-Doos running around like crazy all summer long.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
It's the playground for Vancouver.
And the department—correct me again if I'm wrong—has refused, to this point, to address those problems.
9 a.m.
President, Gulf Trollers Association
Well, we brought them kicking and screaming into addressing the problems—
9 a.m.
President, Gulf Trollers Association
—and they say they don't have the money to do it.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
So they've allocated, I think, $250,000, and they now have started a cull of these pikeminnows, they're doing a small-scale harvest of milfoil, and to my knowledge there's nothing done to address the other issues.
9 a.m.
President, Gulf Trollers Association
The milfoil has to be harvested in the wintertime or it increases in numbers tremendously, yes, and I believe a number of fishermen are trying to do some harvest of the predator fish as we speak.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Yes. So the problem is that industry has said, “We'll put the money up to fix the in-lake problems—because we think these are the problems—if you'll give us permission to do it and if you'll recognize our efforts”, and nothing has been done until just within the last couple of weeks, I guess.
9 a.m.
President, Gulf Trollers Association
It's been fairly recently that DFO has come on side, saying that something has to be done in the lake, yes.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Is there any indication from DFO—and I don't know what the criterion for success on the harvest of pikeminnows is—that they would be prepared to raise the exploitation rate of Cultus sockeye if there were a reasonable harvest of pikeminnows, whatever that might be, or if somehow or other they were able to address the milfoil problem?
9 a.m.
President, Gulf Trollers Association
We aren't being told much, but from listening we're getting the indication that DFO could maybe live with a 20% harvest rate. The problem with this is that the Pacific Salmon Commission, which is the body that advises DFO on the management of sockeye, has recommended a 42% harvest rate on the late sockeyes. Once you tell the Americans that they can take 42% of those fish, they're going to take 42% of those fish. They're not like us Canadian fishermen. What will happen when they take their 42% of the fish, they will take a percentage of Cultus morts in that thing, and it's estimated that will be probably 7% or 8%. The natives will take a percentage of those morts in their food, ceremonial, and social fishery. They'll also take a percentage of those morts in their economic fishery. What happened last year when the natives finished and the Americans finished was that there was nothing left for Canada.
If we stay at a 20% harvest rate on this stock, we are going to let a tremendous amount of sockeye back onto the spawning beds, and that's not good news. It's not good news for the resource; it's not good news for us. Right now, we're having trouble with the Horsefly, which we never had a problem with before, because we let too many fish back onto the spawning beds. So this is a really complex issue, and it's one that needs proper management.
9 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
The commercial fleet, with its long history of fishing the Fraser River, is at the bottom of the pecking order when it comes to access.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
The likelihood is that even with a 20% exploitation rate the opportunities for the commercial fleet are going to be extremely limited this year.
9:05 a.m.
President, Gulf Trollers Association
We will be barely able to survive, if we can survive, and we certainly won't be able to take 100,000 fish and put them back into Cultus Lake.
9:05 a.m.
Director, Gulf Trollers Association
Mr. Cummins, there's a good possibility that there won't even be a commercial fishery at a 20% exploitation rate.
9:05 a.m.
Conservative
John Cummins Conservative Delta—Richmond East, BC
Precisely, yes. So that really has to be the issue at the forefront here. If you don't get an opportunity to fish because of Cultus, nothing else matters, does it, at this point?