Mr. Chair, the Sackville Rivers Association is a not-for-profit, volunteer-based, community group concerned with the health of the Sackville River watershed. The SRA's mandate is to protect and where necessary restore the river and environment of the Sackville River watershed. The Sackville River flows for over 40 kilometres before discharging into Halifax harbour. The 150-square-kilometre watershed contains 13 lakes, many wetlands, ponds, streams, and feeder brooks. The population on the watershed is currently over 60,000 and increasing daily.

The Sackville River is a historic Atlantic salmon river. In the mid-1800s, a salmon hatchery was established at the mouth of the river and was closed in the early 1960s due to deteriorating water quality and diminishing salmon returns caused by development in the watershed.

The SRA, in partnership with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, participated in a stocking program to restore the Atlantic salmon to the Sackville and Little Sackville rivers, which was stopped in 2013 due to budget cuts. SRA has continually counted Atlantic salmon since 1989. In 1996 we counted over 750 adult Atlantic salmon in the Sackville River.

The SRA uses the wild Atlantic salmon as a biological indicator of water quality, a canary in the mine. If we can keep the salmon in the watershed, all species of fish can live in the river. The Sackville River is used extensively by recreational fishermen, and by commercial and aboriginal fishers.

If the youth of today are our future, we need to educate and encourage them to go fishing. We need to promote recreational fishing in Canada much better than we are doing. Our youth know how to shop in a mall and play electronic games, but they do not know how to catch a fish. We must get our youth into a more active lifestyle that includes the outdoors and fishing.

Urban rivers must be highlighted, enhanced, and protected, so that the increased population now living in nearby cities can have access to recreational fishing. It is our youth who are the ones we want to have out fishing, and by doing so increase the future of the recreational fishery, and not have them hanging around their rooms and in malls playing electronic games. We need those urban rivers protected.

Due to a lack of access to wild Atlantic salmon eggs for our educational fishery program in schools for grades 4, 5 and 6—teaching about 500 children a year—we had to start using speckled trout eggs. This limits the effectiveness of the program. DFO has to change its policy and provide salmon eggs for this valuable education program.

We are desperate for a marine recreational fishing licence. This licence would cover shellfish, groundfish, striped bass, shad, grass prawns, and smelts. It is estimated that over 8,000 people alone spend over $5 million a year on marine recreational fishing, just for striped bass in the Bay of Fundy.

How do you manage a fishery with no catch data, no fishing network information? The licence would provide funding information for studies, habitat restoration, species management, and science. This would also be consistent across Canada, as British Columbia now has a tidal waters fishing licence.

Set DFO free to go to sea. Coastal and marine ecosystem changes must be studied and DFO must be given the resources to focus studies that would determine why salt water mortality for wild Atlantic salmon is happening, what ecosystem changes are occurring, and recovery actions needed to be implemented to stop this mortality. DFO must be allowed to do at-sea research to find and stop the black hole.

It's clear, so it must be clean. Wild fish need good water quality. Acid rain may be the single largest reason for the decline of wild Atlantic salmon in the 73 Southern Upland rivers in Nova Scotia. Due to the lowering of the pH and raising aluminum levels in the rivers, to overcome the negative effects of acid rain, Environment Canada and DFO should partner to lime the rivers that are affected in the Southern Upland on an ongoing basis.

At least 13 rivers of the Southern Upland are totally unsuitable for spawning or rearing based on the acidity and aluminum levels. This affects over 10 million square metres of wild Atlantic salmon habitat. Liming must be started and carried out to return these rivers to full production. The liming project at West River, Sheet Harbour initiated and maintained by the Nova Scotia Salmon Association for the past 10 years on a shoestring budget must be taken over and operated by both Environment Canada and DFO.

For example, in Norway and Sweden, over $20 million a year is spent on liming rivers with a five-year payback from increased tourism. We live next door to 400 million tourists or fishermen. Many would come here if we had fish and promoted fishing correctly.

Another problem is, who looks after acid rain? Is it DFO or is it Environment Canada? This must be straightened out and resources provided to correct the problem, not just studies.

In 2007 there was an escape of aquaculture fish, farmed fish, rainbow trout. Several of these fish showed up in the Sackville River, hundreds of kilometres away. Rainbow trout is an invasive fish species here in Nova Scotia. What are DFO and the province doing allowing invasive fish to be raised in open net sewer pens where escape is possible?

DFO is a promoter of the aquaculture industry and the regulator at the same time. This is a conflict of interest.

DFO is mandated to protect endangered wild Atlantic salmon, but they do not use the precautionary approach when there isn't science to prove an activity is safe. Recently the Nova Scotia government gave the aquaculture industry $25 million. DFO should give NGOs in Nova Scotia a similar amount to save the wild Atlantic salmon.

The volunteer is doing what he can where he can. Of the more than 550 watersheds in Nova Scotia, with 73 rivers known to have salmon, containing over 78 million square metres of Atlantic salmon habitat alone, this habitat is not just for salmon but for all fish species and must be protected and restored where possible. In-stream work required to address habitat issues is part of what will be required to reverse the declining population trends. This work is now being done by volunteer groups. In Nova Scotia there are about 25 groups actively doing in-river restoration. We need more groups and resources for those groups.

Thanks to the Province of Nova Scotia, the recreational fishing licence habitat stamp program, which funds a NSSA Adopt a Stream program every year, great work is being done to restore the fish habitat in Nova Scotia rivers. This program must be supported by DFO by funding an equivalent $1 million a year, or by matching dollar-for-dollar from the province's habitat stamp.

Perhaps the time is right for a new green fund. Perhaps a habitat fund could be created where offsetting funds for all fish habitat losses could be placed to help the volunteer groups restore our rivers. This fund would be overseen by the present NSSA Adopt a Stream program, which is already up and running. Population viability analysis indicates that relatively small increases in either freshwater productivity or at-sea survival are expected to decrease extinction possibilities for Atlantic salmon, especially in the Southern Upland rivers of Nova Scotia.

While a freshwater productivity increase of 50% decreases the probability of extinction within 50 years to near zero, larger changes in at-sea survival are required to restore populations to a level above their conservation requirements. Acidification and barriers to fish passage in rivers are thought to have reduced the amount of freshwater habitat by over 40%.

What happened to the wild Atlantic salmon when it reached the culvert? It got hung up. With an estimated 100,000 culverts or more in Nova Scotia watersheds and the fish passage failure rate of 50% to 80%, many millions of square metres of salmon habitat are inaccessible to wild Atlantic salmon. More inspections of culverts are required by more DFO inspectors and actions taken to correct issues, not just to inventory the losses.

This is and will be an ongoing problem until all culverts are installed correctly. Contractors should have to pay a fee or offsetting levy for the habitat destroyed to be used for stocking, liming, and for restoration of Atlantic salmon and other fish stock habitats. Small-diameter culverts authorized under guidelines now do not have to fund offsetting work. This must be changed.

We need a Nova Scotia habitat credit bank fund, possibly funded by installation of culverts, that would allow developers to put money into the fund so they can get on with their projects and not unnecessarily be held up, delaying economic development. Those moneys collected could then be used to restore lost habitat and to lime rivers.

In addition, like a carbon credit, NGOs could sell their restored square metres to the developers at $40 per square metre, and then use this money to further restore Nova Scotia rivers and damaged habitat to increase recreational fishing in Nova Scotia. Currently, DFO does not allow this habitat banking approach.

The present DFO RFCPP is a very good program and should be expanded and increased. Well done, DFO.

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