Fisheries Committee on June 17th, 2020

[Owen Bird]

The resources in British Columbia and on our coast are fairly broad. There are options to fish for many different species. They are all managed and regulated accordingly.

The key here, and what we focused our time, energy and comments on, are the chinook. Chinook salmon in tidal waters is the marque species. They are the ones that grow largest, and they are abundant enough to allow for harvesting. People enjoy fishing for them. Like I say, they are important for food security.

While there are other species and other opportunities, the main driver of the public fishery in tidal waters in British Columbia is chinook salmon. All others follow and are an important component of the activity, but chinook salmon are the driver.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Is it possible to quantify the impact of recreational fishing on fish stocks in British Columbia? If so, how do you do that?

[Owen Bird]

That is a complicated and complex question, because there are so many different runs along the coast extending into Alaska and the State of Washington. However, we can say that the amount of salmon harvested by the public fishery is in the order of 25%. That does vary from year to year, but compared with all other extractions from harvest, it's about 25% of the salmon harvested. That gives you a sense of the proportional withdrawals or the harvest of the public fishery.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Has the COVID-19 pandemic led to a decrease in recreational fishing activities?

[Owen Bird]

Yes. It absolutely has.

As Martin points out, the typical season begins in April. It does for various fishing that occurs all through the year, but it begins in April. All of the fishing from March until now has been limited to household activity and no business has been allowed to occur. Let's add the fact that restrictions are in place for chinook. That's had a fairly significant impact on licence sales to date this year. The last figure I heard was that licence sales were down somewhere from 20% to 25%.

As far as activity on the water goes, that's also equally impacted. This actually turns out to be a further argument to suggest that the department can make a decision about opportunity this year, which is all-important, because the effort is less as well. There is a reduction in catch at this time because of COVID. It's not exactly a silver lining, but it is an argument to suggest that changes could be made more quickly.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Blanchette-Joncas.

Mr. Johns, for six minutes or less.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to all of the witnesses for being here, and for your testimony.

Mr. Bird, you've talked about mass marking of hatchery fish, the importance of that, of opening a mark-selective fishery in British Columbia. Can you talk about how this plays into conservation? Lowering mortality, these are the kinds of things people are talking about. This is a very important conservation opportunity as well. Can you speak to that?

[Owen Bird]

How mass marking can play into conservation?

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Absolutely.

[Owen Bird]

There is the idea that with additional marking to what already occurs—as Martin Paish pointed out earlier, it's only 10% of what's currently produced in hatcheries—if you moved to mass marking and also to an increase in mark-selective fisheries you are basically targeting hatchery-raised, hatchery-produced salmon. You are able to identify those fish very easily and distinguish between them and wild salmon.

Currently, where you have mixed fisheries, you allow hatchery retention, and the potential for increased wild harvest when you have that kind of fishery in play is greater than it is if you have periods of time in areas where you understand that the prevalence of marked fish is high enough. And if declare that this should be a mark-selective fishery, you can avoid wild salmon stocks, plain and simple.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Perfect.

Mr. Bird, we've talked about restoration. You and I have talked about this repeatedly and about the importance of the government ramping up investments in restoration. Right now, the B.C. SRIF is only at $148 million over five years. They were oversubscribed on their first round. They had $340 million in applications, and they only doled out $70 million.

Can you talk about the importance of increasing that and about the restoration work of all of the people involved in recreation and the public fishery and how, if they're resourced, we literally have hundreds of thousands of man-hours, if you want to call it that, ready and at our disposal to get people into our communities to help restore that fishery? Also, as an opportunity for a COVID response for those who may not even get out this summer, because of the lack of people visiting our coastal waters, and from the United States in particular, can you talk about how this potentially will be important in the fall, especially, and in the winter?

[Owen Bird]

Yes, and thank you for the question. I think that's one of the really excellent things about those involved in the tidal waters and in sport fishing in B.C., and I'm sure in other jurisdictions as well. It's their absolute engagement and willingness, and that actually getting down to it, to work and to volunteer to help with enhancement issues and restoration activities and to be involved in net-pen work—not aquaculture, but net-pen work—to raise smolts for release and these kinds of things.

The funding that's being made available is good, but much more than project funding, we'd like to see funding for an overall plan that not only addresses fisheries management issues, but takes on restoration, takes on rehabilitation and considers enhancement projects with regard to hatcheries. It goes to your point, Mr. Johns, that we engage the angling community and those interested in fisheries resources to work on those projects. The ability to roll out those SRIF projects now, under the pandemic, and to get people doing these kinds of activities that are desperately needed by our salmon would be excellent, and basically can't happen soon enough.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Mr. Burke, you talked about the wage subsidy and how they should scale that in terms of the rollout moving forward. Can you talk about what you would like to see in terms of scaling that rollout in what the government is doing right now?

[Osborne Burke]

Yes. Currently, it's a 75% subsidy, as we know, based on a 30% reduction in sales. What we're seeing in a number of companies I'm talking to in the seafood industry is that they're at a point where they want to ramp up as markets open up a bit. However, if they do that, they will be right on the borderline of the 30%, so they would disqualify themselves, and it's a disincentive at that point.

What I'm saying, as a taxpayer as well, is that we should seriously look at some sort of sliding scale. If you were at 30% and now you're down to 25%, maybe that 75% becomes 65%. Something on that basis going forward, beyond where we are now, I think would be a significant help. We would see more of the companies moving forward, bringing back more workers and thereby reducing the impact with the CERB, where you're paying the money out but we're not getting the benefit of those workers. In the workforce is where we want them to be.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Super.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Johns.

That clews up that round of questioning.

I need probably a few minutes to do committee business. If nobody has any objections, we'll go into that now and let our witnesses depart. We'll thank them for their attendance—

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Chair, is there any opportunity to extend the meeting so that we could get in one other quick round of questioning, like we did yesterday, and extend committee business?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Yes. If the committee would consent to allowing us to go a little bit over our time to deal with committee business, I'd certainly allow a quick round with a question for each party, with maybe a minute for a question and a minute for an answer. If we could do that, if that's suitable to everybody, and if everybody is in agreement...? I'm seeing heads nod. I don't see any noes, so we'll go on to one-minute questions.

Next on my list—and I don't know if this will be the first questioner—is Mr. Calkins, for a one-minute question and a one-minute answer.

You're up.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Chair.

The 2019 salmon closures or salmon regulations were devastating for the guides, outfitters and sport fishers on the coast of B.C. My understanding is that these regulations are virtually the same this year as they were last year. Added to that is the COVID-19 border closures and restrictions on travel.

To Mr. Helmer, or the Sport Fishing Institute of British Columbia, what will be the effect if the sport fishing advisory board's recommendations are not taken into consideration? What is the future of recreational fishing for salmon on the west coast going to look like if we maintain the status quo?

[Martin Paish]

If there's a minute, I'll jump in there, Blaine.

I would suggest that the future would be quite bleak. If we are to maintain the current suite of non-retention regulations in B.C., as I think I pointed out in my talk, this is about survival. It's not about thriving; it's about survival. Chinook drive the fishery. They're what drives the economy and the small coastal communities associated with it. Without the opportunity to retain chinook, and that is essentially what most of the inside of the British Columbia coast has now for the big portion of the chinook season, the fishery will just continue to decline, infrastructure will disappear, and the fishery and its associated benefits will go away.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Fred, is that what you're seeing as well?

[Fred Helmer]

Absolutely.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you.

It was supposed to be one question each for a minute, Blaine. You snuck one in there on me, but I'll let you away with that.

We'll now go to Mr. Battiste for a one-minute question and a one-minute answer.

[Jaime Battiste, Liberal, Sydney—Victoria, NS]

Mr. Burke, two days ago the Department of Agriculture launched applications for the surplus food rescue program. The idea is that, in areas where there's a lack of demand, it's created a food surplus, such as seafood in Cape Breton, and they will assist organizations that can demonstrate they can purchase the surplus food and get it to food banks. Were you aware of this option for processors? Is this something you might look into?

[Osborne Burke]

I wasn't aware of those types of details. Currently we're probably processing right at our maximum now with the lobster landings and snow crab, so even if I'd been aware of it, I don't think it would be an option for us. A number of processing facilities for seafood are fairly busy at this moment. Give it a couple of weeks, and that would probably be of interest to a number of them.