Fisheries committee  It's an interesting topic, because it has evolved so much with the social media presence over the last couple of years. The fishing community as a whole and the ways that anglers communicate with each other are changing faster than any policies or anything else could evolve. We firmly feel as a club that spending the money on education delivers a far greater value than enforcement, and you can put more conservation officers out there, but you're going to get a better bang for the buck by actually focusing on educating anglers and ideally creating better opportunities for access to fisheries.

Fisheries committee  Most of the community hatchery programs and a lot of the volunteer organizations, the NGOs, all these different groups that work to try to build habitat and improve fisheries, are going through a succession challenge that we see in a lot of different industries where you have a group of anglers who have volunteered and worked really hard for the last 20 years, and they're looking for that next group of 20- to 30-year-old people who are wanting to take on the responsibility and the work that's involved in doing that literally boots-on-the-ground work itself.

Fisheries committee  The purpose of the advisory groups was to create better stakeholder engagement between anglers, first nations communities, commercial fisheries, bait licensees, and even business owners, such as charter operators and tackle shop operators. Say there is a study done on a fishery and there are potential changes that could be made, whether in regulations, stocking allowances, or whatever.

Fisheries committee  We work from the headwaters, north of Woodstock and Stratford, right down to where the mouth, the river itself, empties into Lake St. Clair. I fish a lot in Sarnia as well.

Fisheries committee  Yes, we have. It was primarily managed through the province beforehand. Since that time they've deferred some of the management of those funding and grant opportunities to other agencies, like the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. In many cases, this has actually improved the process, where you have people who are more directly involved in fisheries management being more directly involved in decisions around funding and how it's going to be delivered.

Fisheries committee  I think the better the communication is and the more consistency there is across all levels, from federal to provincial, and then working with groups like ours.... When there's consistency, it's very easy to get things done. At a policy level that's really important. I think we really need to be looking to the future and at how we're going to bridge this generational gap of who those next anglers will be.

Fisheries committee  You're absolutely correct; in a lot of the projects we take on, we don't start with stocking fish, we start with habitat restoration primarily. You can stock fish into any river system, but if the system can't sustain them then you're really creating a put-and-take fishery, which is not accomplishing a sustainable result.

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much. My name is Robert Huber. I'm the president of the Thames River Anglers Association here in London, Ontario, Canada. First of all, I'd like to thank everyone for inviting us to participate in this committee session. Hopefully we have some ideas and some perspective that will help with the goals of this committee.