Mr. Speaker, I am here tonight because of a question we asked the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans about. She simply did not answer it.
The Liberal strategy for Fraser chinook salmon has been an utter failure. Instead of implementing an effective recovery strategy for our iconic Pacific salmon, the Liberals chose once again to place unnecessary restrictions on fishing opportunities for British Columbians.
I have an example here of a story. It is getting to be such a concern to B.C. fishers, especially in the Fraser Valley, that, “Some avid sports fishers call it 'discrimination' that there are openings for fishing for chinook in the ocean, at the mouth of the Fraser and at interior rivers and lakes, but not in the Lower Fraser River where Fisheries and Oceans Canada is hoping to protect endangered sockeye runs.”
The question was about unnecessary closures. I was going to speak about this more generally, but I am going to defer to some experts we have in our very own province of British Columbia.
I want to talk about Dave Brown from the Public Fishery Alliance. From April 1 to August 31 of 2020, there were unprecedented chinook closures placed on the public fishery around Vancouver that had devastating socio-economic impacts on the Vancouver guiding industry, marine industry and recreational salt water fishing industry. Why were there no fishing for chinook regulations implemented for Howe Sound?
Second, the historic data show that the area has an extremely low encounter rate on chinook stocks of concern. They were less than 0.5% of all fish sampled over many years by DFO, and the prevalence of marked hatchery chinook was high. What is the rationale for this area being closed, when the potential impact on stocks of concern is virtually zero? It can provide a critical opportunity for the province's largest angling community. It shows the disdain of DFO for the recreational fishing community in B.C., unfortunately.
I want to talk about Peter Krahn, selective fisheries expert. In 2008, over 90 sports fishermen in the lower Fraser Valley, Chilliwack, dedicated the month of August to assist in the DFO plan to determine the impact of a non-selective fishing technique for salmon, called bottom bouncing. The report, published in 2009, found over 90% survival for catch and release using that technique.
For the 12 years since, the sport fishing community has been petitioning DFO to do a similar study of a selective fishing technique using bar rigs, which is virtually guaranteed not to intercept the endangered sockeye.
Why have the minister and DFO refused to do the required study? It puts the sport fishing community, and the 1.5 billion economic benefits and jobs in peril, when such a study would only cost about $225,000 for all the sports anglers' time and it would be voluntary. We are talking about folks who do this for free. They would go out and try to see our increase in salmon on their own dime.
Chris Bos, South Vancouver Island Anglers Coalition, says that we must get back to our hybrid version of chinook mark-selective fishery as soon as possible. He also sees the need for DFO to start 100% marking of all hatchery Canadian chinook for proper and accurate conservation, as the State of Washington already does. He also wants southern B.C. to transition into adopting mark-selective fishing for the public fishery where plausible.
The bottom line is that here we see groups that are really trying to help our B.C. salmon get back to populations where we can fish without concern again. They are doing it voluntarily. They want to do it on their own time, yet it seems at every step the minister, instead of helping these folks out and letting them do what they love to do, which is to fish and see our B.C. salmon increase, is trying to impede their efforts to do that very thing.
When is the minister going to help recreational fishers increase B.C. salmon populations?
