Question Period Note: Salmon Habitat in the Fraser River

Salmon Habitat in the Fraser River

Sustainable and healthy ecosystems are both economically and culturally integral to the people of British Columbia and Canada.

The Heart of the Fraser is an area of importance to both salmon and white sturgeon, and am committed to protecting fish and fish habitat in this area.

To that end, we continue to deliver on our promise to implement a modernized Fisheries Act which supports sustainable, stable, and prosperous fisheries, while we also work with our partners to explore additional avenues to protect this important area.

Ecologically Significant Areas
My department is considering how certain species and habitats that could be sensitive, highly productive, rare, or unique, like those found in the Heart of the Fraser, could benefit from designation as an Ecologically Significant Area under the Fisheries Act.

We are engaging Canadians on concepts for a national framework to govern the identification, establishment, and management of Ecologically Sensitive Areas.

While this work advances, fish and fish habitat within the Heart of the Fraser continue to be protected under the Fisheries Act.

• The Heart of the Fraser is used to describe an area of the river between Mission and Hope, British Columbia.
• In recent years there have been numerous calls to protect this area from development owing to its importance a productive stretch of the river that provides important aquatic habitat for numerous fish species, including all five Pacific salmon species and Lower Fraser river white sturgeon which have been assessed as ‘Threatened’ by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada and are under consideration for listing under the Species at Risk Act.
• The Heart of the Fraser is jurisdictionally complex, with many First Nations, multiple intersecting government jurisdictions, rapidly increasing urban population and development, multiple linear transportation corridors, and multiple highly valued freshwater fisheries.
• Given the significant interest in protecting the Heart of the Fraser, Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s Fish and Fish Habitat Protection Program is working closely with the Province of British Columbia, First Nations, and environmental non-governmental organizations to initiate a planning table to explore opportunities and avenues for better protecting the Heart of the Fraser.
• Fish and fish habitat within this section of the river is protected under the general prohibitions against causing the harmful alteration, disruption and destruction of fish habitat and/or the death of fish by means other than fishing contained in the Fisheries Act.
• The Fisheries Act also contains provisions which allow for the designation of Ecologically Significant Areas which could potentially afford additional protections to specific species and habitats that could be sensitive, highly productive, rare, or unique, such as those found in the Heart of the Fraser.
• No Ecologically Significant Areas have been designated under the Fisheries Act as of yet. Fisheries and Oceans Canada is engaging with Indigenous peoples, partners, and stakeholders on initial concepts of a ‘National Framework for Identifying, Establishing, and Managing Ecologically Significant Areas’. This Framework is a first step in examining how this new regulatory tool could be used to protect fish and fish habitat.

None