Good morning, everyone, from Kamloops, British Columbia. Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be here today.
I have some opening points.
There is a major problem in front of us. To align with some of what Mr. Zeman said, what we are currently doing is not working for our Pacific salmon. Many of the populations are in serious conservation decline. What slipped under the radar last year, because of the attention going to Big Bar, was that it was the worst coast-wide Pacific salmon return ever. It was the worst sockeye return on the Fraser ever; worse than what triggered the Cohen commission of inquiry. Failure to take action now is likely to result in many of our Pacific salmon populations following a path similar to what happened to our east coast cod, and we all know that story.
In terms of thinking about what to do, we have to take a long view. Recovery is going to take time. I don't believe there are simple answers, but it is possible to take actions to make things better for our salmon.
There are some good things happening. I think some of the recent funding programs that have gone on—going back, the RFCPP under the Conservative government and the Oceans Protection Plan under the current Liberal government—are positive things. In particular, most recently the B.C. Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund is positive, because the collaboration between the federal government and the provincial government is the kind of thing we need to do.
However, we need to recognize that the problems are big and they're long term. This funding over five years, while it is useful, is not of the kind or scale or duration that we need to solve the problem. Other things, such as restoring lost protections, represent a positive step, but we need to follow up with action.
I think it's important to recognize that salmon ecology is really complicated. There aren't simple answers. There are issues with predation; there are issues with habitat; there are issues with fishing. There are subcomponents to these issues, and there is no single thing such that if we do that thing, everything will be better.
A way I like to look at what we can do for salmon is to think about the ocean as the big driver of what enables salmon populations to swing up and down. This is part of a natural cycle. It is probably changing because of climate change, but we as people can do things, managing what many biologists call the three H's: harvest, habitat and hatcheries. I'm going to speak to these in a little bit of detail.
Combined with these, I think we also need to think about having information and data, and we need to continue with the science to understand what's going on.
I'll speak to these all very quickly.
In terms of harvest, we know that harvest has been reduced. We heard this from Mr. Walters already this morning. We know that access and opportunity are very important to the constituents. However, we need to start to think about how we unlock access to this fishery. It's currently locked up, primarily because weak populations are co-migrating with populations that are stronger. We need better information, better management science, better monitoring and better assessment so that we can access the fisheries and the populations that are healthy and protect those that are weak. Participants in the fishery—first nations, public and commercial—have capacity to bring to the table.
Turning to hatcheries, I would say that not every hatchery is the same. What I would suggest we need right now is attention to conservation-focused hatchery capacity. This is different from producing fishable catch. It is different from dumping a lot of fish out into the ocean and hoping that something good happens. This is a very specific thing designed to bolster weak populations while we figure out what the problem is and make things better. A rush to increase hatchery production is unlikely to get us the outcomes we want.
I think we do have an urgent need for conservation-focused hatcheries. We need to turn those on quickly, for reasons such as Big Bar. It's going to take tens of millions of dollars, and we need to run them for two decades.
Turning briefly now to habitat, we need to protect what we have, we need to fix past damage, we need to be strategic and not reactive, and we need to be coordinated and not siloed. There are many good things out there in terms of what we can do for habitat, but we are not taking the kind of action that we need to take.
I have a number of recommendations that I will follow up with in writing, but we really need to start establishing watershed-based habitat plans and delivering on those kinds of things.
In terms of monitoring, assessment and data, to summarize, we can't manage what we don't measure. We're not monitoring enough and we're not measuring enough. We need to pay attention to ocean ecology and science so that we know what's happening out there.
In summary, the overall management system is not working. The sum of the parts is not allowing us to understand what's going on, put them together and solve the problems. We are saying the right kinds of things. We have the Cohen commission of inquiry and we have the wild salmon policy, but we are not getting the outcomes we need. The Government of Canada needs to set goals for salmon recovery and sustainability and take responsibility for achieving those goals and taking appropriate action.
In summary, significant new investment is required into the three “H” levers—harvest, hatcheries and habitat. New dollars need to go into DFO as well as to collaborators and partners. The management system needs to be revitalized. Consideration should be given to an independent oversight body to complement the work that DFO and other regulatory agencies are bringing forward.
I will stop there. I think I kept within my six minutes.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.