Fisheries Committee on May 5th, 2015

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

How are you addressing those issues? You say you're dealing with them now, but is it through collaboration and through sitting on different boards within different organizations? How is your group dealing with this?

[Darrell Crabbe]

We're very active. We have watershed associations in Saskatchewan that have cropped up over the last 10 years and are very active and have a great deal of responsibility within our province, so we're very active on those boards. They also provide us most of our identification for fish projects, so it's collaborative in effect. On those types of boards we have a very broad number of stakeholders, which provides us a lot of support from the provincial government, recognizing the support we have from all different avenues there. It's actually working very well.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Crabbe.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Ms. Davidson.

Mr. Crabbe, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for appearing before our committee today on behalf of the entire committee. We certainly do appreciate the input that you've provided to this committee. Once again, thank you on behalf of the entire committee.

We'll take a brief recess while we set up for our next witnesses.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

I call this meeting back to order.

We have guests from Winnipeg and Swan River, Manitoba, so I'd like to thank you, gentlemen, for joining us here today.

We generally allow about 10 minutes for presentations or statements, and then we proceed to questions and answers.

I'm not sure if Mr. Connolly or Mr. Borowski is doing the comments for the Swan Valley Sport Fishing Enhancement, but we'll start with Mr. Olson with your introductory comments and then we'll move on.

Mr. Olson, whenever you're ready, the floor is yours.

[Rob Olson, Managing Director, Manitoba Wildlife Federation]

I want to thank you all very much for giving us a chance to speak to you today. It's quite exciting to be here to talk about fishing, one of my big passions and one of the great passions of the organization I run at the moment.

I represent a group called the Manitoba Wildlife Federation. We have about 14,000 members in Manitoba, so we're quite a large group. We are organized.

The most powerful thing about our group, and I think the neatest thing and the reason the group is so special, is that it's organized in clubs. Right now we have 95 clubs spread across Manitoba. Just about every part of Manitoba has a Manitoba Wildlife Federation club. What's great about that is that it's driven completely by volunteers, and they are really great, passionate people.

When I got the invitation to speak I tried to think about the most important thing to say today. In talking to the clubs and people I think the most important thing is to point out the importance of recreational fisheries and why they are important.

An incredible connection happens when you go out and fish. It's not that endangered species or endangered fish are not important; they are, they're very important. We all have an obligation to conserve our biodiversity across Canada, but there is something about the act of doing, of catching a fish, of being out there, and actively participating in the stream or lake and catching that fish and maybe eating some as well and connecting to the food aspect of it. It's a special, deep connection that motivates people in more than any other way you could connect them to water, in my view.

You can talk about clean water, you can talk about endangered sculpin, but when you get someone out there fishing in the lake or stream, they develop a passion and a connection and a reason to volunteer and a reason to care. It's that emotional connection to those waterways and to those fish that drives people to do incredible things.

I won't bog you down with the hundreds of projects our clubs have done. I'll just provide a couple of examples.

Because of that connection to the fish and fishing, they'll spend hundreds of hours rehabilitating and cleaning streams. We have a lot of examples of that in and around towns and cities where the streams often get clogged or polluted or plugged up with garbage, and the clubs will organize and go out there to clean up those streams and free up those spawning areas for the fish. That is incredibly valuable and important, not just to the pike and the walleye, but also to all the invertebrates and the entire ecosystem that's thriving in that stream.

Our clubs often do spawning enhancement work, so they'll rehabilitate spawning areas in the creeks and streams. We just did a project in Winnipeg on Sturgeon Creek, where we put in spawning structures. We're still working on it.

The reason we all volunteered is that we grew up fishing in that creek and I still fish in that creek today. When the season opens here in a few weeks, on a given night there will be anywhere between 40 and 50, and as many as maybe 74, people fishing that creek in one evening—city people, kids, men, women, old, young, all engaged in the creek. They're connected to the creek, they care about the creek, and they clean it up. Again, it's that connection to the fishing that drives them. It's why they're there and it's why they volunteer.

The recreational fishing passion connection creates stewardship. It creates a sense of ownership so the clubs feel as if they own the lakes and streams, in a positive way. They feel responsible for it.

I think that's a powerful notion for government because there is not enough money in government to be able to pay for everything all the time. We have to mobilize communities. You have to get people to do the work. You need the volunteers. We can't afford to pay people to do all this stuff, so it's that stewardship and that ownership that is the magic that comes from the fishing. Without the fishing it just isn't going to be there at the same level.

There is definitely an economic impact. I'm sure the folks in Swan River will talk a lot about that. They have incredible things going on up there, obviously.

There are lots of parts of Manitoba where trout has been stocked by local groups who want to see economic diversification, and it does it ever drive it. People are showing up from all over the world now to fish in these trout ponds and trout lakes.

We have a little club in Lac du Bonnet that just raised about $200,000, mostly local dollars in grants and from local businesses, to establish trout in a bunch of ponds called the Blueberry Ponds right here in Lac du Bonnet. People are now coming to Lac du Bonnet to fish, or they're going there for other reasons and then they add the fishing. The fishing seems to be a reason for them to go there, so it's a way to get people to go to rural areas and support small towns. That is really, really important at a time when there are not so many options to get people to go to small towns and rural areas to recreate and spend money out in those places. It's really important from an economic perspective.

The last thing I'll say is that one of the things I'm most passionate about is seeing young people fishing. One of the neat things about that is how it connects them to streams, rivers, and water quality—things that we want to do that you can't do in the classroom. You can't do it by telling them. You can't reproduce or replicate the excitement of a fishing rod bending over and the thrill of something pulling on the other end. It has to be primeval. It has to be something hard-wired into our brains. I've never seen a child or new person do it and not get excited.

That excitement is so special and so unique, we can leverage that. Then we can say, “Hey, do you know what? We're doing a stream cleanup here in two weeks. You enjoyed catching that fish? For that fish to thrive in here, we have to put back. We have to do things to make sure that they're healthy.”

In closing, if I could say one thing about the importance of recreational fishing, it would be that a magical connection occurs there with people that turns into all kinds of amazing things at the local level in terms of conservation, not only of recreational fish species but all the other species that live in those areas, and of course the water quality that we rely on as humans as well.

I think that's enough from me for now. Thank you for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, Mr. Olson.

Mr. Connolly or Mr. Borowski, the floor is yours.

[Jeffrey Connolly, President, Swan Valley Sport Fishing Enhancement Inc.]

Thank you for the invitation to participate in this; I was quite surprised last week.

We have just had our 29th annual sport fishing banquet. Our group was one of the first original volunteer sport fishery groups in the province of Manitoba. Privately, we've raised close to half a million dollars over the last 29 years. All of that has gone back into the area around here through research, through enhancement, through education in our school systems.

We feel that things have really changed in this province in the last 10 years. Unfortunately, there's been a loss of investment from our provincial government on the importance of our fisheries. We have taken it upon ourselves to step in and continue where we feel the province left off.

The Province of Manitoba has created a fish and wildlife enhancement fund. From that fund, we have probably accessed close to $70,000 in the last six years. From that, we have stocked lakes, we've done research, we've done management decisions on the water bodies, and we've improved fishing. We've also felt in the last two years that the young people—they're the next generation who come along—are more important than a lot of other issues.

We spend a lot of time in the schools. We do a fish camp for children. Right now, Don Lamont, a known outdoors person, is here for the last two days. I believe he's going to six different schools. He's doing education on fisheries and the importance of getting out, and fishing, just to be outside.

Fishing is a big industry here—it's approximately $400 million in Manitoba—and it's a fact that you don't have to have a $30,000 boat. All you have to be able to do is drive to a lake, or drive to a shoreline, and you can catch a fish. Sometimes it's not even about catching fish, it's just to be outside and enjoy the day, whether it's summer or winter, whatever the weather it is. It's hard to explain. If you enjoy fishing it's in your blood.

I've fished in Nova Scotia, Ontario, Manitoba, British Columbia, and Alberta. I can honestly say that the Swan Valley, about five hours from Winnipeg, has some of the best sport fishing I've seen. We have a massive range of different species of fish.

There are people coming here from the United States. It's a big economic and social business. We have first nations. We have Métis people. Everyone takes a portion of the fish. It's a big social and economic thing in the rural area and even in the cities. It's not specifically based on race, or based on income, or based on anything. Anyone can do it. Other than that, I don't have a whole lot to say.

The only concern I wanted to bring up in our discussion is invasive species. Invasive species is a Canadian-wide issue. It's getting worse. There are Asian carp just south of our border. We now have zebra mussels in Manitoba, which we never had before. An example that we see of an issue is at our border crossing, which is our front line of defence on things coming into Canada.

A friend of ours, last April, went to Michigan and bought a boat. He's an outdoor guy. He bought a boat in a zebra mussel hot spot in the United States. He crossed the border crossing east of Emerson. He specifically asked if they were interested in checking his boat for invasive species. He was told by the Canadian border crossing they have nothing in place to prevent invasive species from coming into this country.

We have rusty crayfish now. We have zebra mussel now. We need to all work together. We're trying to do our part. Unfortunately if the border isn't doing it's part, we're going to have some big issues. It's not just Manitoba, it's Canadian-wide. That's pretty much what I have to say in closing.

I'm not sure if Pete has anything to say.

[Peter Borowski, Vice-President, Swan Valley Sport Fishing Enhancement Inc.]

Mr. Connolly, you just about said everything.

[Jeffrey Connolly]

Other than that, I'd like to turn it back over, and thank you for the opportunity to speak.

[Peter Borowski]

If I might, I would like to say a few words. I think Mr. Connolly has said almost everything.

I'm Pete Borowski of Swan Valley Sport Fishing Enhancement. I was involved with the sport fishing enhancement group in Dauphin, where I lived about 17 years ago, and then I got transferred up to Swan River. I went from a very good sport fishing enhancement group to the best, or anyway the first, and in fact back in 2000 or 2001—I forget the exact year because my memory is getting poor in my old age—a couple of members of our group were able to go to Ottawa and receive the recreational sport fishing award from the Governor General. I was lucky enough to be one of them. It was quite an honour.

This group does a lot in the area and in lobbying the governments and trying to get them to do a better job. We're feeling that the governments are dropping the ball. In fact, they've lost the ball. We have people in the province who have knowledge and are willing to work, but when you have no budget and you can't leave the office, that doesn't make for management. That makes for analysis of problems and analysis of data, but you have to be out on the landscape.

As Mr. Connolly has said, we are accessing this provincial fisheries fund and are able to utilize that. I won't say what is the percentage of work we're doing that the province should be doing, but it's becoming higher every year, which is a sad comment on fisheries management in Manitoba. Over my years, I worked in resources in the forestry end of things, but continually seeing people outside....

People enjoy the outside. I ran across a situation one time down in Spruce Woods, an area about 80 miles west of Winnipeg, where there were problem kids from a high school who could never get along and who were criminalized and into vandalism and all kinds of difficulties. Put into a common building to look after themselves for three or four days, everybody got along. They fought halfway out to the field but they got there. Everybody calmed down, enjoyed themselves, and had a wonderful outdoor experience. There was no fishing involved, but it just shows you the things that can happen when people are outdoors and recreating. It's good for everybody.

I don't want to go on forever so I'll cut it off there, but thank you for having us here.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much, gentlemen.

We're going to go into our question and answer period now. We'll start with Mr. Chisholm.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Gentlemen, thank you very much for your presentation.

The passion you have for the outdoors in general and certainly for recreational fishing comes through loud and clear. I'm from Nova Scotia. Mr. Connolly said that he's been there fishing. I certainly grew up on lakes and rivers in different parts of Nova Scotia. It is an important opportunity that some of us certainly have and that we take advantage of.

I'm curious about the role of DFO in the province through legislation. The mandate is, to some extent, the inland waters and is more with respect to fish habitat and protecting fish habitat. I'm wondering if you could talk a bit about your experience and how much of a presence DFO has in relation to the work that you and your organizations do.

[Jeffrey Connolly]

I'll start.

Probably five or six years ago in Dauphin, DFO rebuilt the train station. They had 30 employees. Their presence was unbelievable. They were everywhere. Now that building is empty of DFO staff. Any information that we have to deal with DFO on is based out of Ottawa now, including all of our permits, all of our applications, and anything involved since then.

We have accessed two projects through the RFCPP. One was for spawning shoal improvement, where we went into a lake and built spawning shoals. The second one was to remove beaver dams in order to have our walleye swim upstream and spawn. We've been doing that for probably six years, and this is the first time that we were able to partner with the federal government. Both of these projects are a huge success.

We really don't see DFO inland anymore. At one time they were there, and now they really don't exist.

By the way, Mr. Chisholm, I'm actually from Liverpool. I grew up there and moved away when I was 21.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

There you go.

Did you do some fishing in the Mersey?

[Jeffrey Connolly]

I fished in the Mersey and the Medway River, yes.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

The Mersey and the Medway, yes; that's good stuff.

We just lost a big experimental biodiversity facility there on the Mersey. The big facility ended up getting bulldozed. It was doing great experimental work not only on Atlantic salmon but also on whitefish.

Mr. Olson, can you comment on DFO's presence in the province?

[Rob Olson]

In terms of DFO's presence in the province, I can't remember which years it was when they had staffed up and had a lot of enforcement of people on the ground out here. I do remember at that time I was working with farm groups, and it wasn't seen in a positive light. To me, and from our organization's perspective, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' role in experimentation is outstanding. I think it's not positive that the research facilities have been abandoned. I think that was an important role for DFO.

In terms of the other side, as a landscape-level enforcement agency I don't think it worked. Predictably, it had no chance of working in an agricultural landscape. Maybe regulating point source polluters and pulp mills would be a possibility, but the rural communities push back very hard. They called them fish cops. Any time you have enforcement people going on to farms and telling farmers what they can and can't do, it just doesn't work well. There's a need for rules and there's a need for regulations. I think what we've learned in the last 15 years is that how you approach rural communities is the key.

In terms of how DFO relates to us here, I think those recreational grants are outstanding because they create partnership and stewardship. It gets the local groups like us and others working with the federal fisheries department. I think getting back to some of that experimentation that they were doing is also really important.

On the regulatory role, our group would urge caution. In the future, if DFO was thinking about enforcing the Fisheries Act on the landscape, we'd like to talk about doing that in a different way.

[Robert Chisholm, NDP, Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, NS]

Okay.

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Cleary.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Connolly, that was an interesting story you told about the boat from the United States that was a hotbed for zebra mussels, the invasive species.

I'm from Newfoundland and Labrador. My riding is in the easternmost part of the province. My advice to you, sir, is just wrap a little bit of seal fur in those zebra mussels and they'll confiscate it every time.

[Jeffrey Connolly]

We try eating it but, you know, you don't get a lot.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

On a serious note—well, a half-serious note—both of you gentlemen offhandedly mentioned stocking of ponds and lakes. I'm interested in hatcheries and stocking. In Newfoundland and Labrador we don't do that. We don't stock ponds. We don't have hatcheries. A hundred years ago we had hatcheries for cod. We have had hatcheries for some rainbow trout over the years, but none in decades.

How does the stocking of ponds work? Are there hatcheries, and who funds that? How successful is it?

[Jeffrey Connolly]

I sit on the fisheries wildlife enhancement fund subcommittee for the province of Manitoba. Through that I've been privy to some information regarding our hatcheries in Manitoba. Our hatcheries in Manitoba in the Whiteshell park, specifically for trout, almost closed. There were some people in the provincial government who saw no value in that hatchery. Sport fishing groups like mine, and Brad's, we fought very hard to get this hatchery rebuilt. It's basically almost in the final stages of being rebuilt and fully operational again. We raise tiger trout, triploid rainbows, brook trout, rainbow trout, and we have splake. If this hatchery did not exist, we would not have this sport fishing ability in this province, because most of these fish are not native to this province but they are a highly sought-after sport fish.

As I said, there's a trout called tiger trout. They're only in two lakes in our area, and the only reason we have them is that the provincial hatchery has produced them. We have people from Montana and throughout the states coming here. We're having our national fly-fishing championship in lakes in the surrounding area. We have lakes that have to be aerated for these fish to survive. We have fish weighing over 10 pounds. It's a huge sport-fishing industry. The dollar spent on the hatchery has a $40 return in this province. We struggled when the province actually wanted that hatchery to close.

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Connolly, who funds the hatchery? Who pays for that? Are they provincial government dollars? Are there any federal government dollars in there?

[Jeffrey Connolly]

Up until last year it was a provincially funded hatchery. The province has now turned everything over to our sport fishers. On our sport fishing licence, there's a $10 enhancement stamp. It went up from $5 to $10. So all the sport fishers in this province now contribute directly to the financial running of that facility.