My name is Dave Brown. I've lived and fished in the marine and freshwater environment of B.C. since 1991. I have served as the chair of the Squamish to Lillooet sport fish advisory committee for over 20 years. In 2017, I received the National Recreational Fisheries Award, one of only five given out that year by the fisheries minister. I volunteer as a avid angler in the collection and sampling of DNA in the ocean, and I've aided Tenderfoot Creek fish hatchery with the collection of their brood stock.
Today I'm representing the Public Fishery Alliance, which is a broad-based, non-profit society consisting of almost one thousand Canadian anglers, angling organizations, angling-dependent businesses and volunteer salmon and habitat restoration groups.
Chinook salmon are the most important species to the public fishery in British Columbia, and anglers recognize the need for conservation when specific stocks are experiencing decline. Since Minister Wilkinson implemented the wide-ranging non-retention policy for chinook in 2019 through much of southern B.C. waters during the important April to August fishing season, our public salmon fishery has been all but gutted.
The sport fishing advisory board submitted a suite of very modest chinook retention proposals in 2020 that were designed in collaboration with DFO fisheries and stock assessment staff using the most recent data. These small areas represented vital opportunities for salmon anglers and avoided migrating stocks of concern while measures to protect declining Fraser chinook were in place. Even though a management framework model deemed the proposals as low- or no-risk in the spring of 2021, then fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan rejected them. Both the sport fishing advisory board and the angling community were devastated by her decision. At the time, no rationale was offered as to why the proposals were refused.
Anticipating an opportunity to amend the SFAB proposals to offer even greater protection to Fraser chinook in the hope that they would be approved for spring of 2022—