Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you for having me here.

I'm the executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, and we advocate for the conservation of B.C.'s wild salmon and their habitats.

I grew up around salmon and fishing. I have a master's degree in biology. Between my education and my work as a fisheries observer and my current job, I've been focused on salmon for about 25 years.

My understanding is that today you want to hear how government should implement the recent budget commitments for salmon, which were very welcome. We have to look at those commitments in the context of the crisis our salmon are in and the brutal cuts to salmon management over the past couple of decades.

I'm going to get right to it with some key budget items.

The first is to “stabilize and conserve wild Pacific salmon populations, including through investment in research, new hatchery facilities, and habitat restoration.” That's a good start, but the objective there should be the same as Canada's wild salmon policy, which is not just to stabilize but “to restore and maintain the healthy and diverse salmon populations in their habitats”.

The top priority has to be rebuilding endangered salmon runs, as required under the new Fisheries Act and the wild salmon policy. DFO has not even initiated recovery planning for the vast majority of B.C.'s endangered salmon populations, and many more have not even been properly assessed.

The bit about investment in new hatcheries is a tricky one. You've heard testimony on the growing scientific evidence that hatcheries harm wild salmon by degrading their genetic fitness, by drawing unsustainable fishing pressure, by competing with wild salmon for diminishing food supply and by spreading disease. They're also very expensive.

DFO's current risk assessment framework for hatcheries is piecemeal. It hasn't been peer reviewed. It doesn't cover all the risk factors. It doesn't get applied to all hatchery operations, and the process is not transparent. We do need a few hatcheries here and there in extreme cases, like Mr. Haskell described, but the risks need to be properly assessed, with wild salmon health as the top priority.

Habitat protection and restoration is really a much better investment, especially if it's targeted on the most critical habitats. Some of that's been accomplished already through the B.C. SRIF. The federal government could also leverage more provincial support by matching the B.C. government's healthy watersheds initiative.

There are also some important efficiencies to exploit. For example, the budget included $1.4 billion to top up the disaster mitigation and adaptation fund. A chunk of that will likely go to flood control. There are over 1,500 kilometres of salmon habitat in the lower Fraser that are blocked off by obsolete flood control structures that need to be upgraded to deal with increased flooding due to climate change. Those upgrades can be done in ways that open up the habitat for salmon while keeping communities safe from flooding. If federally funded flood control projects are required to be fish-friendly, it could actually open up a huge amount of habitat for Fraser salmon.

Protecting habitat in the first place is actually much cheaper than restoring it later. The “Heart of the Fraser”, which I believe you've heard about, is a prime example of habitat needing protection. In general, this government simply needs to stop allowing so much habitat destruction.

On the commitment to improve fishery management, we can't manage our fisheries properly right now because we don't have good enough data on how many fish we have in our streams, who's catching them, how many are being kept and where, and how many released fish survive to spawn. That's partly why mark-selective fisheries are so risky right now. We need to bring our catch monitoring and stock assessment up to national and international standards across all fishing sectors. B.C.'s commercial salmon fisheries no longer have Marine Stewardship Council certification because DFO hasn't been meeting those basic standards.

Regarding the $20 million for consultations on phasing out open-net salmon farms, consultations are important, but they can't be an excuse for delay. The parasites, bacteria and viruses from the farms are hammering our salmon out there every day. The government promised to get the farms out of the ocean, and that needs to happen. There also should be money for helping to transition the workers and develop truly sustainable industries in our coastal communities.

Last of all, you can't put this all in the hands of DFO. There are great people there, but you've also heard a lot here about the suppression of science and the lack of precautionary management. DFO needs ongoing, independent, expert oversight. That could be the job of the Pacific salmon secretariat promised in the budget. It needs to be arm's length from government, led by experts and not dominated by stakeholders. For an example of what not to do, I'm sorry to say that you should actually look at what the B.C. government set out to do with developing their salmon secretariat and strategy a couple of years ago, which was before Mr. Donnelly was with them.

That's all for me. I think we mostly know what needs to be done here. We need to aggressively take on the biggest threats that can be mitigated and the biggest impediments to good management, and we need to do it fast.

Thank you.

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