Our federal government--Fisheries and Oceans--needs to reallocate much greater resources to wild Atlantic salmon conservation, restoration, and management.
We've looked at DFO's budget for wild Atlantic salmon compared to aquaculture. DFO's budget for wild Atlantic salmon management, conservation, enforcement, assessment, research, and so on was about $25 million in the mid-1980s. It was down to only $12 million just a few years ago. If you do a cost of living increase on that, it's a reduction not just of half but of about 75% over that time period.
So at a time when wild salmon numbers are dropping, DFO's budget for trying to take care of and restore those wild salmon runs is also in great decline. That's not to say that DFO does not have some great staff. We work very closely with the enforcement staff and research staff and so on. They're very dedicated people, but their numbers are getting smaller and smaller and their challenges are getting larger and larger.