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House Hansard - 24

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 4, 2022 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 24 - Feb/4/22
Mr. Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, NDP)
  • Feb/4/22 11:15:16 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak once again to the very serious situation facing wild salmon and steelhead on British Columbia's north and central coasts. A recent study shows Alaska's fisheries are catching hundreds of thousands of fish bound for our rivers. Alaskans have become the biggest harvesters of many B.C. wild salmon populations, even while we see our stocks decline. Last year, B.C.'s commercial fleet was tied up at the dock, sport fisheries were closed and many first nations could not catch their food fish. That same year, southeast Alaska caught 650,000 Canadian sockeye salmon, and 470,000 of those were headed for the Skeena River alone. That is just sockeye. The same story holds true for chum, pink, coho, chinook and steelhead. The Pacific Salmon Treaty was negotiated during times of relative abundance, but now it is failing to deliver on its key mandates of equity and conservation, and it is not up for renewal until 2028. We need the fisheries minister to act now. We must use mechanisms to open the treaty and begin emergency negotiations with the Americans. Our wild salmon cannot wait until 2028.
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