Yes, we are seeing a lack of officers. We're seeing a brain drain happen, with people heading to other parts of the Canadian government and people leaving. As I said, there are people leaving who are coming to work for the province and the Conservation Officer Service. There's a challenge with people who love fish and wildlife. They don't do it because they make more, get a better paycheque or it's a better job. They sacrifice those things because they're so passionate about the resource. Sometimes you see—we're seeing it provincially too—some pretty serious issues around morale because there's a lack of funding.
How do we change that? I know that B.C., definitely, has more fisheries. We have a bigger recreational fishery, more indigenous communities and more species at risk, probably, than every other place to the east of us, but per capita we definitely have far fewer fisheries officers, so we need some kind of commitment to ask, “What do we need? How many people do we need?” This is as opposed to a makeshift approach where, when we have budget cuts, it's a matter of priorities. Our priority is fish and fish conservation.
On technology, the BCWF actually built a tool called the conservation app. We need to update it, but it gives citizen scientists the ability to basically report infractions on their phones. For a bit of backstory, when we started putting it to use about six or seven years ago, DFO was opposed to it because they were worried they would be overwhelmed by the number of reports and they wouldn't be able to respond to them because there weren't enough people. Is the technology there? Yes, absolutely.
As it relates to enforcement, the big picture is funding, capacity, and then outcomes. It's hard on all of us when fisheries officers, biologists and managers, who care so passionately about the resource, say they can't even do their jobs, they're not allowed to leave the office and they can't travel—all those sorts of things. There's a big picture, and maybe DFO can spend some time looking at what's an appropriate level, but there have been multiple commissions, and every single commission that comes up always says there aren't enough enforcement officers. Sometimes you get a bit of a bump, which fades off over time.