OldBlackDog
Well-Known Member
Bob Hooton
2h ·One month ago (June 4) I sent the letter copied below to the federal and provincial government ministers whose responsibilities include salmon and steelhead fisheries. I took that step following numerous previous attempts to secure even the most basic information from those responsible public agencies (especially the Department of Fisheries and Oceans) met with either silence or embarrassingly evasive replies.
It took less than a minute to receive the auto response to my June 4 message from the provincial minister confirming receipt and committing to a response. I never received any communication whatsoever from the federal minister. The silence from both ministers' shops continues.
Decide for yourselves. Is this acceptable handling of a hopelessly poorly described, unsanctioned, unauthorized program with no accountability that is consuming millions of our tax dollars? What does it take to elicit the slightest sign of responsibility from the people we elect and pay to represent us? Where are all the non-government fisheries advocacy organizations who pride themselves as public watchdogs? Hello BC Wildlife Federation, BC Federation of Fly Fishers, Steelhead Society of BC, Watershed Watch, Skeena Wild Conservation Trust, various angling guide associations..................
Dear Ministers Thompson and Neill,
Today I turn to you after multiple attempts to secure answers to basic questions pertaining to a large fisheries project financed by the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund supported by both your ministries. The project of concern was formally announced at a news conference by your predecessor ministers on December 14, 2023, although there is much evidence to confirm it was evolving for at least many months prior to that date. The original announcement referred to a “pound trap” to be installed and operational on the lower Skeena River in summer 2024. The initial budget of $2.21M was advertised as a co-operative arrangement between a Washington State based non-government organization, the Wild Fish Conservancy, a First Nations group, the Lax Kw’alaams Business Development Corporation and, to a much lesser extent, the Skeena Fisheries Commission. The latter group has been noticeably absent from any connection to this project since it was announced. The WFC was the lead group. It is abundantly clear it seized the lucrative funding opportunity available through the BCSRIF program if a partnership with a First Nation could be demonstrated.
As a retired fisheries management professional with 37 years of service in the Province of BC’s variously known Ministries responsible for steelhead (more than 1/3 of it in charge of the Skeena Region fisheries program). I took careful note of the minister’s announcement and began extensive research to try and determine precisely what was proposed, who the delivery agents were and what level of engagement federal and provincial governments’ fisheries management professionals had to that point. My primary concern throughout was the influence of the proposed works on the internationally renowned Skeena steelhead resource. A brief summary is as follows:
• No one in either the DFO office in Prince Rupert or the Provincial office in Smithers had ever been involved in any capacity with the project or its proponents before it was announced. In fact, the senior authority for the province stated he had never heard of the project until I brought the December 2023 press release by the two ministers to his attention.
• No authorizations or permits necessary for anyone proposing to install the trap and handle fish were ever applied for in 2024. In fact, as of this date, Transport Canada has still not issued the permit required pursuant to Navigable Waters legislation and there have been no scientific fish collection permit applications submitted to provincial fisheries adjudicators. My most recent inquiry to DFO in that respect remains unanswered.
• No report was ever made available on whatever was undertaken in 2024. Numerous requests for same to the WFC’s Executive Director and its Special Projects Director, as well as DFO's Manager of Partnerships and Outreach for the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund, were never answered (see below).
• During the long silence following repeated requests for information, a revised project outline appeared. That outline bears no resemblance to what was announced in December 2023. A considerable amount of additional activity labeled “research” (e.g. radio telemetry, DNA sampling) is included in this latest outline. The budget estimate was increased also. Long gone is any reference to the dozens of steel pilings to which the net described as a pound trap was to have been installed in mid-summer 2024. Now we have a “floating trap” that is marketed as an ongoing selective fish capture device with the potential to fundamentally change commercial fishery harvest of Skeena origin salmon. No one has ever acknowledged that the WFC’s eight- or nine-year-old pound trap on the placid, lake like waters of the lower Columbia River that are the antithesis of the free-flowing Skeena has yet to replace any gill nets.
• The web sites of the three organizations listed as participants in the project announcement of December 2023 are devoid of any reference to the Skeena trap project. The WFC, in particular, has an impressive web site replete with dozens of up to the minute, beautifully illustrated accounts of its various undertakings over the past decade. The word Skeena is nowhere to be found.
• On June 3, 2025, a long-awaited response to various questions I had put to the BCSRIF Manager referenced above arrived after more than two months had elapsed since my last inquiry. It took mere moments to discover how unfamiliar the author is with a major project he appears to adjudicate. For example, he claimed scientific license sampling permit applications have been submitted to BC and DFO. Staff in Smithers clearly indicate otherwise and as noted above, DFO in Prince Rupert has failed to respond to my recent request for an update but earlier correspondence indicated otherwise. The manager states that “if all permits are successful, installation of the trap is planned for mid-June”, scarcely two weeks hence. It seems just a bit unlikely anything of the sort will happen. Continuing, the Manager states “BCSRIF does not share materials from funded projects to third parties without permission from the funding recipient”. There are numerous other inconsistencies inherent in the Manager’s composition I won’t bore you with here.
In summary what we have here is Canadian taxpayers financing a foreign organization to market a project with zero credibility, complete avoidance of any reference to our own taxpayer funded fisheries agencies, none of the authorizations required under our legislation and no reporting commitments or responsibilities. Overriding all of that we have the POTUS continuing to advance his campaign to destroy the Canadian economy. How can we allow ourselves to line the pockets of a foreign organization under these circumstances? What are you prepared to do to address this outrageous situation?
Respectfully,
R.S. Hooton
