Fisheries committee  First, thank you very much for having me on. I consider this an honour to represent over 300,000 British Columbians who are very concerned with the rapid decline in our salmon stocks. My focus is the decline in chinook, coho and steelhead. All the studies that I've been using are

Fisheries committee  I'm going to relay a story passed on to me by Carl Walters at a recent meeting—

Fisheries committee  —involving the Deadliest Catch people, which you probably watch. They noted a decline in the Steller sea lion population in the Alaska panhandle. They blamed it on various things. Carl asked the skipper what the bottom line was. He said, “The bottom line is that we have $6,000-pl

Fisheries committee  I strongly disagree with the seal population's.... In our IFMP, we have historical data presented that the current populations are almost double that of the pre-arrival of the white man to the coast. By Olesiuk's study, we're at 105,000 seals, and we were at 50-odd thousand becau

Fisheries committee  In our IFMP we're targeting a reduction through harvest—and we have markets for the by-products of the seals—reducing them by 50% over the next three years. It's a trial test for the first 10,000 or 15,000 to scientifically assess whether or not we're on track.

Fisheries committee  First of all, let's address the studies. We've studied this to death. We've spent millions on it. We have the top scientists on both sides of the border specifically pointing out the consumption. I am actively following what's happening on the Columbia River because I think it'

Fisheries committee  Our focus right now, because of the science behind this, is on the seals in the Gulf of Georgia and the Salish Sea. The current populations, in the latest Olesiuk study, from 2018, show 105,000 on the coast and 48,000 in the gulf. Our proposal is that we harvest up to 50% of them

Fisheries committee  We're just out to bring them back into balance.

Fisheries committee  I have two answers to that. First is the financial answer. We've heard that a lot of money is being spent on habitat and whatnot. My first question is, are you happy with 50% or more of that money being eaten by seals in their first month or two in the ocean? The second answer

Fisheries committee  Thanks for the question. It's very easily answered. First of all, the harvesting is a no-brainer. We have all the infrastructure in place with the unemployed fishers and their large vessels. We've talked to several of the processing plants, including one on Vancouver Island, Hub

Fisheries committee  From what I can see, they're fully aware of the pinniped problem on the Columbia and in Puget Sound. They've done their test studies and are moving forward. As I said before, we're just waiting for the outcome of this 23-member panel to discuss it. They're not concerned about the

Fisheries committee  I'm not quite sure.... Your sound was cutting out. Could you quickly repeat that question?

Fisheries committee  If I understand your question correctly, the solution is already in place. That's because of the infrastructure of the professional commercial fleet and all the infrastructure supporting it. The market is in place but yet to be proven. I understand there's a 400,000 quota on the

Fisheries committee  The help is in providing employment, and this employment [Technical difficulty—Editor]. I'm sorry. The interpretation has been cutting out. I didn't get a clear recognition of your question. My apologies from the west coast, English-speaking....

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much for inviting us here. It's been a long wait to get before people on the east coast who understand our problems. I'm going to give a brief outline of what we've done here, and Matt will follow up. I'm going to start off with the risk of not dealing with pinnip