The number—industry will give you numbers, it depends on who you're talking to—they've generally landed on, and we'll get this to you, is about $600 million for the value of the industry on the west coast in marine areas. There are about 350,000 licence holders on the west coast. And that's not just British Columbians; there's a huge tourism industry associated with this.
In salmon, it's largely individual fishers. In halibut, which is a growing area, about 85% of it is lodges and that sort of thing.
As I said, we have the recreational fisheries survey, which is nearing completion. And we do this every five years in conjunction with the provinces, so we will have specific numbers across the country on the number. We get more than just the numbers; we get information on how much they spend in communities, those types of things. So it is a useful exercise.
I may take the opportunity, then, to respond to your question about.... It seems to me the question that was raised on this is very similar to the other one on recreational fishers feeling they're on the low end of the totem pole and that sort of thing. As we move towards more co-management engagement with fishers, that's a bigger and bigger issue, and the issue is largely about the nature of the recreational fishery. With 350,000 fishers in B.C., it's pretty tough for them to get organized and say “here's how I vote” and have elected representatives. With the 650 halibut fishermen or whatever the number is, they have an association.
So the recreational fishery comes across as an industry, because it's largely a tourism and lodge, etc., industry. It is a fisheries sector, because they have a certain percentage of the fishery as well, compared to commercial and aboriginal fishers. And then there's a sense that it's a rights-based fishery: everybody gets to fish as they will, and there shouldn't be a number. In any case, it's largely about how they're represented.
We've done a number of vision exercises for the west coast fishery and the east coast fishery, and we've now engaged with recreational fisheries interests on a vision exercise for how they want to see—working with us—the fishery develop on the west coast and where the recreational fisheries fit in. We have representatives from the industry, we have representatives from people who want to see a fish sector, we have representatives from all the groups, and we're working on that exercise.
It is specifically an attempt to make sure that view is appropriately recognized along with commercial fishermen, aboriginal groups, and first nations at the integrated harvest planning table. That exercise has been under way for about a year.