The Conservative government has been ignoring the collapse of British Columbia's sockeye salmon stocks that threatens to equal the environmental and economic impact of the demise of Newfoundland and Labrador's cod fishery, B.C. NDP MPs said on Friday.
Their call came as B.C.'s salmon fishery comes to grips with the still unexplained disappearance of millions of sockeye salmon from the Fraser River, once known as a fertile spawning grounds for the fish.
"We are facing a critical collapse of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River," said Burnaby-New Westminster MP Peter Julian, NDP critic for the western fishery. " I was on the river a week and a half ago and it was eerie in the silence through the sonar monitoring equipment that is kept there . . . Essentially we are seeing a collapse of stocks that is equal in its magnitude on the economic and environmental front to the collapse of the cod fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador."
Julian and Skeena Bulkley Valley NDP MP Nathan Cullen said Fisheries Minister Gail Shae has been "AWOL" on the issue and has visited the region only once to attend a fundraiser on Vancouver Island in July.
"I've talked to commercial, sport and native fishermen in my part of the world and they are not even sure who she is," said Mr. Cullen.
A spokeswoman for Ms. Shae said the minister's trip to the area did not include a fundraiser and she had meetings with stakeholders, including First Nations, and announced close to $1-million in funding for aquaculture and $1.7-million for the coast guard.
"The situation of the sockeye salmon stock is of great concern and dealing with it is our No. 1 priority at the moment," Nancy Bishay said in an e-mailed statement.
But the opposition said the Conservative government doesn't quite grasp the immensity of the crisis facing B.C. sockeye salmon, and wild salmon in general which, according to estimates, generates about $1.6-billion in revenue and 52,000 jobs on the West Coast.
They called on the government to increase funding for the salmon enhancement program, which focuses on hatcheries and restoration of habitat and has been cut over the years to $26-million, down from $37-million in 1990. They also said the federal government should provide financing for salmon fish farms to move away from open-cage to closed containment operations. Closed containment fish farms filter the water within the enclosures before it enters the watershed.
Ms. Bishay said one of the projects in Ms. Shae's funding announcement had a closed containment system component. She said the Conservative government committed $8-million over two years to the salmon enhancement program.
The NDPMPs also called for increased funding to Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientific resources to increase its ability to monitor the salmon's ocean cycle.
"They have cut all the funding for the department to actually go into the marine environment to count and assess the salmon stock. So they have no idea," said Mr. Cullen. "This lack of science has led to bad decisions. Poor management of this fishery will kill it off in the end. It is a fact because we have seen it in Canada."
Much debate has ensued over the cause of the collapse of the sockeye salmon. Factors such as sea lice picked up by wild salmon from farmed salmon, warmer river water temperatures which weaken the salmon, or temperature changes in the ocean reducing regular food sources, have been pinpointed as possible causes.
Ms. Shae's department was expecting up to 10.6 million sockeye to return to the Fraser, but only about 1.7-million are now expected to spawn in the watershed this summer.
Once an abundant resource that fed the world, years of overfishing destroyed cod stocks off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador.
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Topic: Tories under fire for neglecting troubled B.C. salmon stocks (Read 2003 times)