Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

March 24, 2006

The Honourable Loyola Hearn

15th Floor, 200 Kent Street
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0E6

We would like to congratulate you on your appointment as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and on your recent move to protect enforcement activities in B.C.

I have attached a copy of a 2002 letter from us to a previous minister re enforcement. It is not just the Fraser River fish runs that require effective enforcement. We are seeing a steady erosion of prime fish habitat due to a lack of enforcement personnel and a lack of resolve to pursue issues that do come to light. If habitat continues to be lost then fish stocks will go into a permanent decline across the region.

The lack of adequate enforcement is crippling us as our volunteers see no point in continuing if DFO is not going to do their part. Frequently volunteers will telephone issues to the DFO reporting line but they often don’t receive a call back nor is the issue addressed. This is especially troubling as DFO held extensive consultations with the volunteer community in about 2000 and were told in no uncertain terms by the community that the priority issues were education and enforcement. As you can see from the 2002 letter you really cannot pursue education without enforcement.

Since 2000 DFO has committed more and more resources to the bureaucracy while consistently cutting field positions and thus enforcement resources. Consulting the volunteer community and then doing the opposite of what the community asks has led to widespread cynicism and rapid declines in volunteer spirit and activity.

Your bureaucrats tell us that we are needed to create a “community ethic” that will reduce habitat violations but they show no understanding of how a community ethic works. There is ample literature showing the way to change the community ethic.

New York has used the “broken window” approach and has dramatically reduced crime rates there by hiring more enforcement people and diligently pursuing even the smallest violations. DFO is going in the opposite direction as they reduce field personnel and pursue only the most egregious of infractions (the total number of prosecutions in the last five years in the Pacific region is a pitifully small 50 or less). This embarrassing lack of effort encourages even those who would otherwise be compliant to be destructive as they see everyone else getting away with it. More effective enforcement would stop those who are truly destructive and encourage the others to come to the table to negotiate things that are good for the resource.

We are sensitive to your concern that throwing money at DFO is not the answer especially as we have seen so much funding disappear into more bureaucracy, more studies, more procedural and paperwork demands etc. The excessive numbers of bureaucrats and the games that they play often get in the way of the field personnel doing what needs to be done. There is money to be saved and efficiencies to be realized by reallocating funds from the bureaucracy to the field.

We encourage you to maintain your course and restore enforcement to the place where it belongs. If you do nothing else this will earn you the respect of what is still a large and watchful volunteer community in B.C.

Sincerely

Doug McFee

Salmon River Enhancement Society

Langley, B.C.

Cc Mark Warawa