Fisheries Committee on July 21st, 2020

[Chief Patrick Harry]

Yes, I will comment. As mentioned earlier, I'm part of the delegation with the Fraser Salmon Management Council. Our nation has been very supportive of the Fraser Salmon Management Council and the level of work that has been taking place.

The challenge we face in B.C. is that we have a large number of first nations. I think we have over 200 first nations. Part of the challenge is having consensus decision-making and power. Maybe one of the biggest positives with the organization is to have the number of first nations on board with the organization so that we can hash these things out and figure out what the dollar figures are. It's a challenge to put dollar figures to some of these, but we collaborate as first nations with the Crown.

We do our best to come up with solutions at the Fraser Salmon Management Council, the first nations on board and the Upper Fraser Fisheries Conservation Alliance. These various bodies are looking to find those answers. We may not have them right now, but we're challenged to come together and find those answers. I'm sure we can do it.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

We'll now go to Madame Gill for two and a half minutes or less, please.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I have a question for Mr. Haskell. We have spoken at length about funding, cultural identity and the importance of salmon to the first nations, but the landslide at Big Bar has had economic impacts too.

What is the impact on band council budgets? In turn, I imagine it also affects the budget of your association, the Fraser Salmon Management Council?

[Darren Haskell]

In terms of the budgets, when a landslide like this happens, we instantly have to go and find money, basically, to bring food to our community. It's happened for us some three out of the last four years. It's money that's not dedicated funding. We have to search in other different areas to try to raise funds to go out of the community to bring fish to our people. That's why I was mentioning in my speech that I don't want our kids to know that salmon comes out of the back of a truck rather than from fishing on the lake. That's a big hit.

For our community here—we have about 600 people—we can easily spend close to $20,000 on a load of salmon just to feed our people. That's if we find people who have access to salmon. In the past, we've worked with the first nations on the Skeena to make an agreement with them to provide salmon for our people, but even on the Skeena they're facing some really tough times with their runs kind of starting to diminish as well.

We don't have any dedicated funding for any kind of additional food. We usually have to go looking for donations and for any kind of surpluses. We need permissions from our funders, as well, to use some of those funds.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Madame Gill. There are only three seconds left, hardly enough time for a question.

[Marilène Gill, Bloc, Manicouagan, QC]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

We'll now go to Mr. Johns for two and a half minutes or less, please.

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

Mr. Tones, we talked about the need for fish ladders and a fish passage. Can you speak about—and I know it's kind of hard to have a broad conversation—how quickly you could get a fish ladder or fish passage mechanisms in place at the site?

[Ryan Tones]

Mr. Johns, are you referring to a permanent solution or something more temporary?

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

Yes, or even for this season and then beyond.

[Ryan Tones]

For this season, as I mentioned, the Whooshh system is in place. I've been to the site and have seen it on a practical basis. I think that starting a fish ladder right now, a permanent one, would be a real challenge because of water levels. I think you'd have to do a design starting immediately, and then get to a position where you could start construction when low water happens later this year and through the winter.

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

Okay.

[Ryan Tones]

I would be encouraging a design starting pretty quickly.

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

Thank you.

Mr. Haskell, thinking beyond Big Bar and regarding the state of Pacific wild salmon, we hear that the need for restoration and habitat protection is upwards of $250 million just over the next five years, and the BCSRIF, the British Columbia Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund, is not even.... Well, it's just over half of that, which they've allocated for the next five years for the whole coast of British Columbia. We know that the Cohen commission has recommended removing open-net salmon farms on migration routes for juvenile salmon and migrating salmon because of PRV, sea lice and die-offs. We know that foreign fishing licences and the concentration of quota with commercial fleets in foreign hands is having an impact on conservation.

Can you speak about these issues and about how important it is that the government address these issues?

[Darren Haskell]

I think it's hugely important.

Speaking on the Cohen commission, there's not one single smoking gun on the issues of salmon.

One of the things we've always wanted was to have more monitoring of our migrating species to take place further out. We know that our fish go past Haida Gwaii, and they access them through fisheries there. They hit landfall up in Alaska, and we don't know whether Alaska is being truthful on the amounts that they catch from us.

Another thing is the habitat portion of it. We've been pushing for habitat dollars for years and years. A lot of the proposals we submit are sent back because they're not approved or they're not considered a priority, so we scratch our heads, thinking....

That was one of the things we started prior to the landslide. We finally got approval after about four or five years of lobbying for small-scale enhancement projects in some of the small streams in the upper Fraser. We finally had approval for that prior to the Big Bar landslide. We were making small steps in that direction, but a lot more is needed.

Those are the questions that our chiefs and our councils are asking: Are we going to have to step toward hatcheries and other enhancement means to even achieve getting our fish back?

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Haskell.

Thank you, Mr. Johns. Your time is up.

Committee members, we have a few minutes left. We can probably do one question to each party, with a minute for the question and a minute for the answer. We have to be strict on our time to make sure everybody gets in before we go into some committee business.

Mr. Arnold, would you like to go first, for a one-minute question and a one-minute answer?

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll try to keep this really quick.

Mr. Haskell, again I'll go back to you.

Under the management agreement, what role does your organization provide in the management decisions for salmon on the entire Fraser River? Are they able to provide input and be part of the decision-making process for operations in other geographical areas, and on decisions such as selective fishing gear, season openings, predator management and other stressors that the fish may encounter that migrate into your territories?

[Darren Haskell]

Not right at the moment. We're focused more on the management in the river right now. Parts of the agreement point out that things like the Fraser River panel need to require at least 50% first nations members, which the minister agreed to, but those are areas where we're looking to broaden our scope once we have this management side of things down. We didn't want to bite off too much at once. We want to focus on one thing and do it really well, and then expand to other areas within the fisheries.

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

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Mr. Hardie is next, please.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We've seen this slide, and I want to check on who can speak to the risk of further slides, either at this location or at other locations, given the geography of that particular area. Are we going to have to be more vigilant and maybe pre-emptive when it comes to the possibility of future slides?

We'll start with Kiewit and then perhaps go to one of our first nations.

[Ryan Tones]

I think the area is currently an active slide, so we have to be very cognizant in the current area.

I'll ask Pat Wilson to jump in quickly on whether there's any adjacent site that we're aware of.

[Patrick Wilson]

Again, Ryan, it's not really in our purview or expertise to look at that or be able to comment on it.

However, yes, it is a very deep canyon with significantly high rock walls, and we do observe rockfall in the general area along the canyon as we're working.

[Greg Witzky]

I have one comment to provide for that.

It's funny that they ask, because the executive steering committee from the Fraser Basin Council was just approached about partnering on an assessment of possible slide sites along the Fraser River. We're researching it. We think we know of a university study that identified 75 possible further sites along the canyons on the Fraser River.

The only thing about doing that is you have to look at it for every river in the province. However, it is being looked at.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you, Mr. Hardie.

Now we'll go to Madame Gill for a very short question.