It is now 10 months since Mr. Justice Bruce Cohen tabled his 75 recommendations on how to protect deteriorating Fraser River sockeye runs. With the next four-year cycle of the devastated 2009 run upon us, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is warning that as many as 70% of spawning sockeye in the Fraser will die before they spawn. The entire Fraser salmon fishery from Mission to Yale has been shut down to protect the lower-than-expected run of sockeye as they struggle with record high water temperatures and viruses linked to fish farms.
The Cohen commission spent $26.4 million on its inquiry, after prodding from MP John Weston got the prime minister himself to announce it.
“It is in the public interest to investigate this matter and determine the longer-term prospects for sockeye salmon stocks,” Stephen Harper said in November 2009.
What he didn’t say was that he had no intention of actually protecting sockeye salmon. That lack of intent is ridiculously obvious now that so much time has passed since the tabling of the Cohen report without any response, or any person appointed to be carrying out its recommendations. As reported in BIV’s August 6 edition (“Local fishery caught by Cohen report inaction” – issue 1241), missed deadlines in the report include the creation of a new DFO position to implement a wild salmon policy, publication of a detailed plan for implementation of the wild salmon policy (by March 31, 2013), and revising salmon farm siting criteria to reflect new scientific information about salmon farms (by March 31, 2013).
Even before the Cohen commission had finished its work, the government announced amendments to the Fisheries Act that gutted fish protection and seemed more suited to prairie farm ponds. DFO staff were cut back to the point where there is now only one fishery officer covering West Vancouver to Lillooet, and no habitat violation investigators left here at all.
Wild salmon are a key indicator of our province’s environmental, economic and social health. They are the nutritional, cultural and economic lifeblood of many of B.C.’s struggling First Nations. They feed 190 other species, including trees for our forest industry.
According to the Wilderness Tourism Association, salmon are the feeder species for almost half of B.C.’s $1.5 billion in annual direct spending on nature tourism. Without them, whale watching, eagle watching, sport fishing, grizzly bears and Alaska cruises would be vastly diminished, not to mention commercial fishing, fish processing, BC Ferries, seafood restaurants and the province’s SuperNatural brand. The self-sufficiency and social resilience of scores of coastal communities are directly linked to access to wild salmon.
Stephen Harper doesn’t care if the wild sockeye salmon disappear, because protecting them can get in the way of industries like hydro power, oil and gas, mining and forestry – even though many argue that the now-gutted Fisheries Act didn’t block industrial development, just tempered it to keep some fish alive. Besides, some salmon runs are still healthy. The fish farm and Alberta petrochemical industry lobbyists have the attention of the prime minister, while B.C.’s tourism and wild salmon advocates are scattered and ineffective.
So even though both the BC Salmon Farmers Association and independent biologist Alexandra Morton both agree that Cohen got it right regarding fish farms, no farms have been removed from the path of migrating salmon.
“The government is protecting international trade and the Norwegian owners of our fish farms, but the coastal economy isn’t being added up,” says Morton. “When sockeye came back in 2010, it was like the lights were switched on all up and down the coast.”
Now they’re flickering off, but all is bright in Alberta and Ottawa. •
