Fisheries Committee on Feb. 1st, 2021

[Ron McKinnon, Liberal, Coquitlam—Port Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My question would be to Chief Brown. At the outset, you indicated a perspective based on the north coast and Skeena river system. I have a riding that is on the Fraser. I'm going to try and find out if there are similar problems in the Skeena water system as well.

Over the years, we've lost habitat. We've destroyed habitat. In my own community, a dam was built across the Coquitlam River over a hundred years ago. It killed the sockeye run. It was the same story with the Alouette River right next door. Up and down the Fraser in the lower reaches, there are flood control gates that are fish hostile. There is a loss of marsh lands along the river, so that the smolts can't acclimate properly before they hit the sea. This is potentially one of the major factors in the massive die-off when they reach the sea. Of course, there's also pollution, as Ms. Sellars mentioned.

What kind of environmental habitat destruction is there? What kinds of massive changes to the Skeena habitat are there? I suspect it's less developed than down here. I've never been up there. Nevertheless, that could be very significant. Of course, the Skeena is really the other great river system in our province.

I would welcome whatever visibility you could give to that.

[Frank Brown]

It's complicated as we've said. This is going to be my concluding comment here. I want to thank you for listening to what we had to share about the salmon. I hope you can do some good work to create the changes that are necessary.

To the question, whether it's the Skeena, the Fraser or the Nass, all of these systems are the same because there are other things outside. We have river valley systems that are completely intact, but the salmon aren't going back there because it's such a large issue we're dealing with.

To the parliamentarians who aren't familiar with British Columbia, we are non-treaty natives. We still own title to the lands and waters in which we live. That's why we set up the different initiatives to deal with these questions of lands and resource titles. That has to go on the record.

There was a reference to our being stakeholders. We are not stakeholders. We are title holders. We own this land, the water and the resources. However, we also recognize we have to work collaboratively, and we're willing and able to do that. This is such a large issue. It's time sensitive. We have to do something in short order.

As one of your colleagues said, I don't want to be back here in two years, but I appreciate the invitation to come and to share a local insight. I wish you well in doing the work on behalf of all of us to save our salmon.

Walas Gixiasa. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ken McDonald]

Thank you. That clews up the session for today.

I want to thank our witnesses for a very informative hour and a half of testimony. Hopefully, we can write some of that information into the report at the end.

I want to apologize to committee members who are not getting more questions in, but I've been told that on Mondays, it's a dead stop at 5:30 eastern standard time. On Wednesdays, we do have some leeway so that we can have some continuation when votes cut into our session.

I'll bid everybody farewell for today, and safe travels wherever today may bring you.

Thank you to Mike Kelloway for being such a great participant today, substituting in for Mr. Cormier.

Goodbye, everyone. We will hope to see you all on Wednesday.