Local experts in fish habitat are concerned that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada could be relocating their Squamish office outside of the area.
MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones said no final decision has been made, but an email chain forwarded to the Squamish Chief by a third party outside the department suggests that initial discussions were already underway in April to relocate enforcement staff to Steveston by March 31, 2019.
Goldsmith-Jones responded to a request for an interview with a brief emailed statement.
“DFO senior management is currently weighing options for the location of the employees in order to keep operations in the Squamish area,” she said. “No decision has been made.”
In April the department said that the lease on the current building was being terminated in spring 2019. Communications staff at the time said “the intention is to keep resources and capacity in the local area.”
On Tuesday, a communications representative with the DFO told The Chief the department had nothing further to add at this time.
Randall Lewis, the environmental co-ordinator for the Squamish Nation, said he is still concerned about the possibility of a closure. He is also a member of the Sea to Sky Fisheries Roundtable.
“Without an office here in Squamish, their response time is going to be very long if they need to travel all the way from Vancouver to deal with infractions,” he said. “They have enough issues dealing with the existing capacity at this point in time, because of all the cutbacks.”
Lewis said for a First Nation to be proposing more enforcement is “profound” because of the once difficult history between the two groups.
He said the Squamish River faces additional fishing pressure each time the Fraser River is closed, and enforcement is essential.
Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada also manages the Tenderfoot Hatchery in the Squamish Valley, which would not be affected by the Hunter Place field office closure.
Chessy Knight, president of the Squamish Watershed Society, said she is also aware of the discussions regarding an office move.
“I’d love to be wrong about it, but I really think if they regionalize and close this office and put those fishery officers out of Steveston and assign them to this area, we will not get the same attention,” said Knight. “It’s just not possible.”
Knight said in particular, the Sea to Sky is very important habitat for anadromous fish, which are species that begin in freshwater, and grow in the ocean before returning to freshwater to spawn.
She said closing the office would be the “polar opposite” of the conservation priorities outlined by Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
While the federal government’s $1.5 billion Ocean Protection Plan has been welcome, she said the funding needs to align with the rest of the system.
“That’s great if you are investing in saltwater habitat, but fish need more than saltwater. They need freshwater to spawn and for babies to grow, before they can go to sea,” said Knight. “It’s all the same system.”
Both Lewis and Knight said the idea of moving enforcement staff outside of the area to save money harkens back to budget cuts undertaken by the Conservative government under Stephen Harper.
According to the April emails leaked to The Chief by a member of the public, the Department was considering keeping one non-enforcement staff member at the hatchery, while moving the sole enforcement staffer to Steveston.
Knight said there was once three separate Conservation and Protection positions in the Squamish area, but currently only one local full-time staff member is available to respond to enforcement incidents as far south as Howe Sound in Squamish and north to Pemberton. Local staff also operate the Salmonids in the Classroom project, which introduces school children to the salmon lifecycle.
