Evidence of meeting #24 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was hatcheries.
A video is available from Parliament.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
To continue on, in 2012 Justice Cohen identified the need to reduce pollutants affecting wild Pacific salmon. In 2014, the federal government delivered Canada's first federal minimum standards for waste water treatment. Last summer the current government began a process to defer the deadlines for implementation of waste water standards.
How much do you feel that water-borne pollution is affecting Pacific salmon, especially in the estuary areas and so on?
5:20 p.m.
Science Advisor, Pacific Salmon Foundation, As an Individual
To be honest, Mel, that one's not really well documented in Canada. We have lots of information on water quality. I don't think it's actually as serious as many other factors. I'd be more concerned about the continued habitat loss in the Fraser estuary, for example.
Some work in Puget Sound under our Salish Sea marine survival program has clearly demonstrated that there are particular pollutants that do reduce the survival of chinook and coho salmon. There are programs and DFO is acting on this now. They are reinstating various programs about contaminants in the Strait of Georgia.
I don't know that we have great current information. The department is acting to improve it. I think it's something we'll have to deal with as we go forward. It's going to be an element of the component, but I don't think it's a major component right now.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
I'll move on to Mr. Hauknes now.
Mr. Hauknes, how many salmon would you say an ordinary commercial fishing vessel would land in B.C.?
5:20 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
It's really dependent on which gear type you're using. A seine vessel could catch as much fish as I catch in one set. It's really dependent upon what species you're targeting, what pressure they can withstand, and the gear type.
If you're just asking what I catch, I would usually catch around 1,000 chinook a year, probably around 4,000 to 5,000 coho and then somewhere in the neighbourhood of 4,000 to 6,000 pinks.
5:20 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
In 2016, the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans visited Vancouver and promised British Columbians that the government was restoring stocks of the Pacific salmon. We're now five years later.
Would you say that the government has restored Pacific salmon stocks?
5:20 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
I wouldn't necessarily say that they've restored it. They might have restored certain populations, but in general in what I can harvest, we haven't seen an increase.
5:25 p.m.
Conservative
Mel Arnold Conservative North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC
Thank you.
Could you give an indication of what kind of capital investment would be required for a new entrant into B.C.'s commercial salmon fishery? Is anyone is interested in that, given the condition of salmon stocks currently?
5:25 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
For a northern troll licence, it's approximately $160,000 to $180,000, depending on the vessel length. A boat is anywhere from $100,000 if you buy an old wood boat to $500,000 for a nice fibreglass boat. You're probably looking at in the neighbourhood of $450,000 to $700,000 if you're getting a vessel that can fish multiple fisheries. You can't just fish salmon anymore, unfortunately. You're probably looking at three-quarters of a million dollars to actually have a somewhat viable fishing operation.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you, Mr. Arnold.
We'll now go to Mr. Morrissey for five minutes or less, please.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
Bobby Morrissey Liberal Egmont, PE
Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to share my time with Ms. May.
Mr. Hauknes, I want you to elaborate on your comment that the way the salmon fishery is managed has changed. At the same time, you said that the department is managing a declining stock but should be managing to rebuild it. Could you briefly explain that the committee? Then I'll give the rest of my time to Ms. May.
5:25 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
I'll try to summarize it fairly quickly.
Before you used to have one licence that allowed you to fish from the Alaskan border to the Washington border. Then they went to area licensing, so the north coast from Pine Island north is one area for trolls. The west coast of Vancouver Island is another area, then the Salish Sea another for trolling. Seines have two licences: north-south; gill nets, that's Fraser River north coast, and then I believe Vancouver Island. I don't gill net, so I don't...but they went to different areas.
If you want to fish all of the areas, you have to buy three licences and stack those licences onto your vessel. Now they've gone to weak management, so you're even restricted further by fishing areas. When we have a chinook opening, we're only allowed to fish from Tian on the west side of Haida Gwaii and most of Dixon Entrance. It's a very small area that we're allowed to fish in now.
As far as managing declining stocks is concerned, we don't really see an increase in the fish we're allowed to retain. There just seem to be further restrictions on our ability to harvest fish. That's why they're managing a declining stock, because if more fish were available to be harvested, then you would see an increase in the commercial allocation, which we haven't seen in a significant amount of time.
5:25 p.m.
Liberal
5:25 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Thank you very much.
Like all British Columbian members of Parliament and many British Columbians, I think we have a rising sense of panic that the salmon is in crisis, as Gord Johns has just said. We need to think about doing things differently. I've already made one key point about where I think we need to go on the climate crisis.
Captain Temple, Dr. Riddell, and if we have time, Robert Hauknes as well, if we fundamentally need to do something as dramatically different as dividing DFO in half and having a minister for the west coast fishery and a minister for the east coast fishery and some combination of them to deal with the Arctic. Captain Temple, if we could radically reform the way we are managing salmon headed towards extinction, as you were saying, what would we do?
5:25 p.m.
Capt Josh Temple
Thanks, Ms. May.
I think that regional management is critical because of the diversity of habitats and unique situations that each habitat and watershed faces. I think regional management is key. It's critical. As Dr. Riddell alluded to before, there is a diversity of different problems that can affect both the marine environment and individual watersheds as well. I think it needs to be supported from the highest level, but I think the ground level in the local regions is where that depth of knowledge really occurs, and I think that's where you're going to find the best chance of viable solutions.
5:30 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Dr. Riddell, if I have time to ask you the same question, does the structure of DFO work? Would a dramatic solution like that help, or do we really need to get this work done on the ground?
5:30 p.m.
Science Advisor, Pacific Salmon Foundation, As an Individual
I think we can work within whatever system of bureaucracy we have in place. We really must have the commitment to the resources, and we can then develop the plan just the way Josh said. You could have regional committees that really know their environment. The limitation of that though is that some of our problems are in the international waters of the ocean. The competition between different countries in producing massive amounts of pink and chum salmon, for example, is not as simple as changing the bureaucracy. We still have the same problems that we have to learn to manage, and we still need the commitment and persistence of resources over time.
5:30 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
Do I have any time left, Mr. Chair? Okay.
Mr. Hauknes, I wanted to give you a chance to expand. If we're managing a declining stock, and you're seeing less and less fish, is there any form of compensation that you think the commercial fishermen in your situation should be receiving because of other competing policy demands that reduce your access to fish?
5:30 p.m.
Fisher, As an Individual
I would like to see a licence buyback or something along that line to compensate people who want to get out of the fishery.
There are still too many licences. There have been a couple of buybacks in the preceding years. The U.S. government gave $30 million to buy up some trolling licences to reduce the impact on the coho salmon, but there are still too many licences. It will be nice to see the government whittle this down, I guess, to a viable number.
5:30 p.m.
Green
Elizabeth May Green Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC
It looks like you have a baby crib in the background there. I hope you take good care, you and your family.
5:30 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ken McDonald
Thank you for that, Ms. May.
Congratulations on the newborn, Mr. Hauknes.
We will now go to Madame Gill for two and a half minutes or less, please.
5:30 p.m.
Bloc
Marilène Gill Bloc Manicouagan, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Riddell, you just talked about international waters, a topic the committee has not spent much time on.
Could you expand on that idea, including the importance of working with other countries?
5:30 p.m.
Science Advisor, Pacific Salmon Foundation, As an Individual
It's an interesting question. Canada is a very small player in the hatchery production game. The massive programs in Japan and Russia and in elements of Alaska really produce a hundredfold times more fish than we do in that.
The problem is that the fish will mix in the ocean. When we went out and sampled in the Gulf of Alaska in the winter, we had fish from Russia, the Yukon River and Japan. These fish are highly migratory.
Then there are many science papers involving statistics that show competition between different countries' fish and our fish.
If there is a limitation on food supply—which I don't know is really demonstrated as well—it looks like there is actually competition between species and countries.
The other international point, of course, is the illegal fishing at sea, which seems now to be coming back a bit and is a concern, but that's a different question from the competition between salmon species.