Question Period Note: Pacific herring management approach

• Our government is committed to evidence-based decision-making for the sustainable management of Canada’s marine resources, including Pacific herring stocks.
• Pacific herring fulfills a vital role in the ecosystem, serving as a food source for many other species, including salmon. Its conservation will always be our primary objective.
• My department conducts annual scientific surveys and rigorously tests its fishery management procedures to verify that they will meet our conservation objectives for the stocks. Our fishery management procedures are precautionary, leaving the majority of adult herring and all juvenile herring in the water to support stock health and the role that herring play in the ecosystem.
• We also recognize Indigenous fishing rights, and the important economic benefits generated from Pacific herring that flow to Indigenous and non-Indigenous harvesters, and coastal communities across British Columbia.
• Taking evidence-based decisions, informed by open and transparent stakeholder consultations, ensures today’s decisions do not cause undue harm to the ecosystem, nor do they unjustifiably impact those that depend on the resource.

If pressed on reported discarding of roe herring catch:
• The Department is aware of an alleged dumping incident reported on March 19, 2021, at Deep Bay, B.C.
• Fishery officers are currently investigating this incident. Subsection 34 (2) of the Fisheries (General) Regulations prohibits commercial fishers from dumping any catch that has been caught in accordance with the Fisheries Act from their vessel.
• The investigation is ongoing and further details cannot be shared at this time.

• Pacific herring are managed as five major stock areas along the coast: Haida Gwaii, Prince Rupert district, Central Coast, Strait of Georgia, and West Coast of Vancouver Island. There are also two minor stock areas: Area 2W and Area 27.
• There are several directed fisheries for pacific herring in each area: first nations food, social and ceremonial, spawn-on-kelp (eggs on kelp); food and bait and special use (seine fisheries for whole herring); and, roe (seine and gillnet fisheries).
• Commercial roe fisheries in 2021 occurred in March. The 2021 season was similar to last year, with commercial openings in Prince Rupert district and Central Coast for spawn-on-kelp only, and in the strait of Georgia for roe, food and bait, and special use. Haida Gwaii and the west coast of Vancouver Island remained closed to commercial fisheries to support stock rebuilding.
• Coastwide quotas continue to be well below average levels since the beginning of the roe herring fishery in the early 1970’s. The herring fisheries generated about $40-50 million in export value per year before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and allow fishermen and processing plants to remain open during the period of the year when very few other fisheries are active. There are over 1,500 commercial herring licences, with a high proportion of Indigenous participation as licence holders and harvesters.
• An e-petition by conservancy Hornby Island seeks an end the Strait of Georgia roe herring fisheries, and has received over 170,000 online signatures since it was initiated in 2019. The petition makes the case to protect Pacific herring as the primary food source for Chinook salmon, which is the preferred prey for southern resident killer whales; and, disputes the economic benefits of the roe fishery, specifically harvesting the roe for export and rendering the remainder of the fish into other products.

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