Thank you, too, for the opportunity to comment on MPA development on the Pacific coast.
Gerry has framed our organizations and the relationship between the SFAB and the SFI, but I'll expand on that. I appear in my role as executive director of the Sport Fishing Institute of B.C. The institute has been in existence since 1980. We're a non-profit society. Members are made up of a wide range of committed stakeholders, including fishing lodges, resorts, certified tidal angling guides, hotels, small communities, and businesses. We represent the interest of those businesses, individuals, and the angling public they serve.
I provide comment today based on my role, but also on my personal experience as a lifelong coastal B.C. resident and angler.
It should come as no surprise to members of the committee that British Columbians value their coastal environment. Witness the public reaction to a small bunker fuel spill in Burrard Inlet in 2015 and a larger diesel spill near Bella Bella in 2016 if you want a sense of how people feel. But it would be a mistake to assume that marine protection and responsible access to the bounty of the coast are mutually exclusive.
British Columbians are fiercely protective of our orca populations, but woe betide the government that tries to ban whale-watching.
The same is true for the MPA process. We want our coast protected from serious threats, but we also want to continue to enjoy responsible access to resources and fisheries that support the economies of the local communities.
While I know some might suggest that sport fishing is incompatible with conservation, that reveals a lack of understanding of the work that our sector and DFO have engaged in for more than a decade. We've taken steps to ensure that local values are protected through rockfish conservation areas and refuge. The target species of the recreational sector are primarily salmon and halibut. Our impacts are low when they should or must be, and always less than commercial and many first nations fisheries.
We also need to be aware that there is more than one process at work on the coast. The provincial MaPP process has been very successful in engaging first nations in marine planning, but that process has not included equal access to other groups. More importantly, it was not informed by data generated by groups who were, at best, peripheral to the process and not suited to provide information from all stakeholders. MaPP makes recommendations on issues that are well outside provincial jurisdiction, potentially impacting fisheries that are clearly regulated by the federal government.
I ask that the committee carefully consider what happens if the MPA process removes areas of the coast from resource production. In the simplest terms, we welcome the MPA process, but must acknowledge why it is being considered in the first place. Canada could protect all of the values it outlines as its goal under the MPA process, simply by enforcing its existing environmental protection and fisheries laws, but that lacks the public cachet of a marine protected area. We understand the political realities of this.
In developing this additional form of conservation that is new—at least to the west coast—we simply ask that you not exclude activities like sport fishing, which are so intrinsic to the coast in the first place. Protect the areas so that people can go and enjoy them responsibly. Once they have enjoyed them, spending a day fishing with family or enjoying the environment, they will know that a given area is worth protecting in the first place.
If too much of the coast or ill-chosen areas of it are turned into a quasi museum, then they will exist only in photographs or as areas of escape for the very wealthy few, and won't allow the benefits and values of the coast to be understood.
Thank you.