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Feds pledge action on salmon stocks

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has dusted off the Cohen Commission Report into the collapse of sockeye salmon stocks on the Fraser River and is pledging to act on its languishing recommendations.
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Fisheries and Oceans Minister Dominic LeBlanc addresses the media, salmon stewardship groups, First Nations leaders and government scientists at West Vancouver’s DFO research station Tuesday. photo Mike Wakefield, North Shore News

Fisheries and Oceans Canada has dusted off the Cohen Commission Report into the collapse of sockeye salmon stocks on the Fraser River and is pledging to act on its languishing recommendations.

Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc made the announcement from the DFO Centre for Aquaculture and Environmental Research on Marine Drive in West Vancouver Tuesday morning.

Since the report was published in 2012, the DFO has acted on about 32 of the 75 recommendations, according to LeBlanc, but slow implementation of the remaining ones was “unacceptable.”

LeBlanc stopped short, however, of saying which recommendations would be acted on first, emphasizing the pressing need right now is to staff up with scientists who can research and advise the government going forward.

The 2016 federal budget contained $197 million in new base funding for ocean and freshwater science to “monitor and improve the health of fish stocks, better understand ecosystem stresses and to support sustainable aquaculture,” LeBlanc said.

So far, 17 new scientists have been hired in B.C. with plans for another 12, all of whom will focus on wild Pacific salmon.

“These new staff will allow us to increase the monitoring of salmon populations, better predict where salmon mortality occurs and increase our investment in fish health,” LeBlanc said. “Much of this work will directly support a number of recommendations made by Justice Cohen in his report.”

While the focus of Tuesday’s announcement was continuing the work on the Cohen Commission’s recommendation, the renewed prioritization would benefit all Pacific wild salmon, LeBlanc said.

As part of the announcement, LeBlanc said his department would begin walking back some of the cuts made to the Fisheries Act by the previous Conservative government, after consultations this fall with stewardship groups, scientists and First Nations’ governments.

“We didn’t think we should simply cut and paste what was in the previous legislation. We think perhaps we could do better and we want to hear from experts,” he said.

DFO will be posting live updates detailing the status of each of the 75 recommendations “so everyone can see clearly and transparently what has been accomplished so far, but also equally importantly, what additional work remains to be done,” he said.

West Vancouver-Sunshine Coast-Sea to Sky Country’s Liberal MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones said she spoke with LeBlanc to lobby him on the issue of salmon stocks within hours of him being handed the DFO portfolio.

“Going back a couple of years, the community has been attached to the Cohen Commission recommendations since Day 1. It’s an exciting body of work,” she said. “To be at the point now where the government has changed, to be enacting policy that is so deeply regarded in the community is really exciting.”

West Vancouver Streamkeepers Society president John Barker beamed as LeBlanc delivered the update.

“I’m delighted – very much so,” he said. “There’s been so much uncertainty as to what was really going to happen.”

Barker wouldn’t say which of the remaining recommendations ought to be DFO’s priority, only that the science-based approach was a big step in the right direction.

“This is really their call how they do it. They’ll bring closure to some of the things they’re being criticized for but in my mind, they’re doing the right thing. They’re doing it through science,” he said.

A lot of theories about the collapse of the stock get bandied about without any hard research to prove them, Barker said, referring to things like fish farms, warm ocean water blobs and allotment of commercial fishing quotas.

The funding and research should complement nicely with the Pacific Salmon Foundation’s Salish Sea Survival Project, Barker said.

“We’ll finally figure out a lot of things that will be going sideways and hopefully find remedies to them,” he said.