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[Old Black Dog]

Fishery Minister not worth keeping.
SOURCE DATE: April 22, 2005
AUTHOR: Bill Thompson



Publication: The Record (Waterloo Region)

Federal Fisheries Minister Geoff Regan has no grasp of the problems and issues regarding Canada's fisheries. Or he doesn't give a damn. Either way, he should resign.

Why?

For starters, in a news conference earlier this month, he revealed his department's supposed new vision for salmon management in the Pacific region and of fisheries across Canada in general.

Call it what you want, it's the result of the federal budget announcement, or more correctly budget slashing, of Feb. 23.

Thankfully, his new vision didn't fall on deaf ears. Following that conference and after reviewing the performance of the minister, the Sportfishing Defence Alliance in B.C. felt that it had no option and on April 14 called for Regan to step down.

"Clearly with his statement Regan showed he has no grasp of the problems and issues on this coast, nor any grasp of the recommendations and concerns put forward by both committees," said alliance president Bill Otway.

The alliance wasn't the first. The Vancouver Sun had called for his resignation days before.

The April 11 Sun editorial concluded "Regan has not demonstrated much enthusiasm for this job. If he cannot or doesn't want to do it, he should step aside so someone else can provide the firm leadership this deplorable situation demands."

Outrageous as it is, Regan had the audacity to say that his announcement of budget and staffing cuts would be the cornerstone to his later response to the reports of the Williams Committee review and that of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

Even more outrageous was the fact that the minister was adamant his new program would result in better habitat protection and would greatly improve compliance and strengthen enforcement. It gets worse. Regan was still adamant after admitting he has ordered the layoff of 80 more fishery officers and 40 habitat protection staff. This despite the fact that both committee reports made specific recommendations regarding the need for more, not less, enforcement resources.

To put the minister's statement into perspective, consider the following:

Even before this latest layoff, 30 per cent of the department's enforcement staff had been laid off over the last three years. Furthermore, there are currently 56 Fisheries and Oceans enforcement officers who protect Ontario's 250,000-plus inland waters from habitat destruction, but 50 of these positions will be cut.

In British Columbia, where the salmon and habitat are so important to Regan's department, 24 are being laid off. And that's despite the fact that at present, there are no enforcement officers in the northern half of the province and none between the Alberta border and Kelowna, B.C.

"How are six officers supposed to patrol an area that is now covered by 56?" asked Greg Farrant, government relations manager for the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters. "What does this say about the federal government's ability to protect our natural resources and the commitment of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to apprehend environmental lawbreakers?"

To add insult to injury, the department announced that in addition to the layoffs, it would "anticipate hiring 40 new habitat monitoring and auditing positions."

Why lay off 120 enforcement officers and habitat protection staff and then anticipate creating 40 new positions for "monitoring and auditing?"

The truth be known, there's several reasons. First of all, you are getting rid of highly skilled enforcement and technical people and replacing some of these positions with pencil pushing office-bound clerks, and at a much lower pay scale, I might add.

In addition, with these cutbacks, the department "will place greater efforts into promoting compliance through education, training and partnership agreements . . . as a means of reducing the need to rely on enforcement action."

Mr. Regan, if you could bag that, you could keep Canada green.

The reality of it is that the Liberals are slashing the department's budget so drastically that the number of field staff left will have no chance in stopping developers from raping Canada's habitat. Then again, the Liberals have done the same to our health and education systems and apparently bellied up to the trough in the sponsorship fiasco.

It's time to clean house in Ottawa. The stench is getting unbearable.

btthompson@therecord.com

[Rodney]

Some pretty strong words and depressing news indeed.

Despite what you may observe and perceive on the waters, participation in the Fraser River fisheries is actually decreasing due to the amount of negativity surrounding it. This applies to both sockeye flossing, barfishing, etc. License sale is down by around 10% last year from previous year. With less licensed anglers fishing on the Fraser, less people observing the waters, it also means poaching is probably also on the rise.

Non-tidal Fraser River bar fishing used to be a popular family practice in September for chinook salmon and hatchery coho. That no longer exists as the department implements the fishing closure during that time to protect endangered Thompson coho stock. Yet, there would be FN and commercial openings during that period at times, which contradicts the conservation measures taken.

Here are some thoughts. 1,000 Thompson coho salmon pass the Fraser River in September (I'm just using this number as an example, it does not reflect actual run size), and only one fish is caught by a sport angler who releases it (how many Thompson coho do you think would be intercepted by spin or bar fishermen in the entire Fraser? Not many, if any). So the probability of the entire sportfishery intercepting the endangered stock is at 0.1% (1/1000). If catch and release mortality rate is at 50% (again, a made-up number), then mortality of the Thompson coho stock by sportfishery is 0.1% X 50% = 0.05%. How high is the mortality by gill net interception?

[Fish Assassin]

Right on Rodney. Too bad the managers at DFO can't see that or is it that they DON"T want to see it ?

[Old Black Dog]

So I am to believe that there are now numerous F/N groups fishing the river 24/7?
So, how long till there are no chinook left to spawn?

[Fish Assassin]

Can't blame them because DFO obviously does not consider them to be a problem. It's us poor sportfishermen who are catching them all