A local fisheries group this week joined other B.C. environmental organizations in formally asking Canada's auditor general to force the federal government to take meaningful action to protect B.C.'s wild sockeye salmon stocks.
The Sea to Sky Fisheries Roundtable (SSFR), whose lobbying helped prompt the establishment of theCohen Commission in response to the 2009 collapse of the Fraser River sockeye run, file its petition with Auditor General Michael Ferguson on Friday (Feb. 21). It asks the AG's office to force federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea to show evidence that action is being taken in response to the 75 recommendations made in the report filed by Justice Bruce Cohen in late 2012 at the end of a three-year process that cost taxpayers $26 million.
"It's been well over a year since the final report was tabled. Despite the massive investment of public funds and expert effort, the federal government has yet to provide any analysis of the final report to the public, or to detail whether and how it will implement the recommendations," members of the multi-stakeholder Fisheries Roundtable said in a statement.
"To our knowledge, [Shea] has only provided short sound bites in the media about the inquiry's report and recommendations and how [the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans) is allegedly responding."
On Monday (Feb. 24), the Watershed Watch Salmon Society and SOS Marine Conservation Foundation filed similar environmental petitions with Ferguson's office, saying their actions were "prompted by a dire concern around government's failure to meet deadlines and take action associated with this inquiry's recommendations."
Dave Brown, SSFR vice-chair, on Monday told The Chief that in spite of the effort put into the Cohen Commission process, the Feds have been moving away from what Justice Cohen recommended on a number of fronts.
"Not only has the federal government not taken meaningful action on the Cohen recommendations, they've backtracked on wild salmon protections," he wrote in an email.
Among those actions, he cited the enactment of Bill C-38, the 2012 omnibus budget bill that included a significant weakening of Fisheries Act habitat protections, reductions to DFO habitat staffing, including at the Squamish office, the decision to begin accepting applications for expanded open-net salmon farms in B.C. and the most recent move, transferring authority for assessing pipeline builders' efforts to protect fish habitat from DFO to the National Energy Board (NEB).
"Their decision to allow new salmon farm licences and changes to the Fisheries Act through Bill C-38 clearly flew in the face of Cohen," Brown told The Chief. "Despite numerous meetings and correspondences, we still feel that the government isn't taking Cohen seriously."
Randall Lewis, president of the Squamish Watershed Society and a member of the Sea to Sky Fisheries Roundtable, on Monday said that despite the commendable efforts of local MP John Weston to provide locals with a voice on fisheries issues in Ottawa, every action taken by the Feds in the past several months has weakened fisheries protections.
"It's very discouraging. All the good work that's been done in the past couple of decades with regard to the rules that existed in legislation have just evaporated. They're gone," said Lewis, the Squamish Nation's environmental officer.
"That's why First Nations would call these sorts of things a conspiracy of legislation. They're changing the legislation to accommodate industry."
Ferguson has 15 days to review the petitions and send them to Minister Shea. The minister must respond in writing within 120 days, Brown said. Later this year, the auditor general must also table the petitions in Parliament, he said.
Ferguson also has the authority, if he so chooses, to audit the work the government has done to implement Justice Cohen's recommendations.
"This will give all MPs a bit more awareness on this, and maybe, if we're lucky enough, it'll trigger an audit," Brown said.
Dr. Craig Orr, Executive Director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said that after 16 months of seeing habitat protections dismantled, "We are left with no choice but to call on the auditor general of Canada to investigate exactly what the federal government has done to review the Cohen Commission recommendations and report back to Canadians. British Columbia's wild salmon are at stake here."
