FOPO Committee News Release
If you have any questions or comments regarding the accessibility of this publication, please contact us at accessible@parl.gc.ca.
|
Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans |
HOUSE OF COMMONS CHAMBRE DES COMMUNES OTTAWA, CANADA K1A 0A6 |
Comité permanent des pêches et des océans |
For immediate release
NEWS RELEASE
Here we go again... or the 2004 Fraser River Salmon Fishery
Ottawa, March 22, 2005 -
Mr. Tom Wappel, Chairman of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, tabled today in the House of Commons the Committee’s unanimous report on the 2004 Fraser River salmon fishery in British Columbia. The report entitled Here we go again… or the 2004 Fraser River Salmon Fishery makes 12 recommendations for the federal government to address once and for all problems that are reminiscent of four similar crises in the last twelve years.
This study from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was prompted by last summer’s disaster on the Fraser River. Barely half a million sockeye reached the spawning grounds in 2004 compared to more than 4 times that number in 2000, the previous year of this cycle. This ecological disaster could result in economic losses to the commercial fishery alone estimated at $78 million for 2008.
“We believe that if DFO had implemented the recommendations of previous inquiries, including those of the Committee’s 2003 report on the management of the 2001 fishery, the likelihood of the problems faced in 2004 would have been greatly lessened if not avoided entirely,” said Mr. Wappel. “The set of recommendations contained in this unanimous report should be taken seriously by DFO,” added Mr. Wappel.
“The Standing Committee did a report in 2001, which was tabled in 2003, making pointed recommendations that would have solved some of the problems that we are facing today. The Fraser report did the same thing. Both reports were completely and utterly ignored by government,” said Mr. Loyola Hearn, the Fisheries and Oceans critic for the Official Opposition. “What we need for the long term is to get to the root of what caused the problems in 1992, 1994 and again this year,” added Mr. Hearn.
Among its recommendations, the Committee calls on the Government of Canada to assume its responsibilities to conserve and protect Canada’s Pacific fisheries resources. In particular, the Committee makes a series of recommendations to increase the enforcement of fisheries regulations on the lower Fraser. Unreported and unauthorized sockeye harvest is believed to have greatly contributed to the 2004 disaster. In addition the Committee recommends:
- to adopt more stringent guidelines for closing the fishery when environmental conditions do not favour sockeye migration;
- to establish additional acoustic estimation stations on the Fraser River to accomplish accurate quantitative estimates of fish;
- to immediately study the impacts of the use of drift gillnets in shallow waters of the Fraser River;
- to prohibit the use of such nets above Mission, at least until the results of the study are available;
- to study and fill the knowledge gaps related to the biology and the management of wild Pacific salmon; and
- to review and implement the recommendations of reports of the past twelve years on that subject.
The Committee’s report is available on the Parliament of Canada’s web site at: www.parl.gc.ca. Copies can be obtained by contacting the Clerk of the Standing Committee.
- 30 -
|