Rose pursuant to notice of February 4, 2020:

That he will call the attention of the Senate to the decimation of Atlantic salmon spawning grounds on the Miramichi, Restigouche and their tributaries.

He said: Honourable senators, this is my ongoing concern about Atlantic salmon and how they’re being devastated in our waters. So I will bring this to our attention again. Hopefully, this time, something might get done about it.

I cannot overemphasize the crisis our Atlantic salmon are in and how, if something is not done immediately to address the situation, an entire species, a way of life, hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars will be lost on the salmon river systems of the east coast, in particular, the Miramichi, Restigouche and the tributaries that feed them. The decline in the last few years is not only alarming; it is staggering. The population of breeding stock has reduced most significantly on the main northwest and southwest Miramichi regions of New Brunswick, but all rivers are suffering.

There are things we have attempted to do to alleviate this. Recently, we were able to secure a 12-year moratorium from the Greenland fishery; we have halted the taking of salmon by anglers stressing only hook and release; and we have used fish hatcheries to release smolt into the river systems, hoping for survival rates to increase.

But the salmon in our river systems are now up against an unrelenting and voracious predator — a predator protected by our Fisheries Department and coddled over the years until its numbers so increased it not only competes with our salmon but it annihilates them. I’m speaking of the striped sea bass, whose spawning beds are on the northwest Miramichi. Protected for years, they are now a plague upon us. Little action has been taken, and the concern we have shown is met with silence.

This is at least, in part, a man-made problem — the engineering of a species in order to re-establish bass numbers along the Northumberland Strait and St. Lawrence Seaway, with a complete disregard for what this voracious predator is now doing to salmon stock. This hauling the wool over the eyes of the DFO has never been new, but has never been more cynically dismissive.

This might not seem a severe thing to urban Canadians, but this is every bit as devastating to our Atlantic salmon, to a whole way of life and a people’s identity as clear-cutting and global warming ever were. There are now close to a million bass coming into our Miramichi waters to spawn. This puts our yearly smolt generation — young salmon backing out to the sea, which is sorely needed to keep our salmon rivers alive — in desperate peril of never of reaching open water.

First Nation concerns are every bit as worrisome as ours, and their predictions are as dire as mine. The DFO, as always, is infuriatingly blind and as agonizingly noncommittal. The two recent ministers of Fisheries were unresponsive.

Salmon guides and outfitters are saying this is also happening on the Restigouche and its tributaries.

The Minister of Fisheries must become more engaged, the Department of Fisheries must allow a culling of the bass by anglers, and the First Nations of the Red Bank and Eel Ground must be allowed to harvest bass for commercial enterprise. This might be a start, but it has to start now, not in three years’ time.

Honourable senators, the very word “Miramichi” is synonymous with the Atlantic salmon. It is the centre of the Atlantic salmon’s world, its spawning beds and its historical breeding water. It is part of the very DNA of our river and our lives. In losing the Atlantic salmon, we lose not only monetarily but spiritually. This is a momentous moment for an entire people and a way of life. Whatever can be done should be done. I cannot stress my concern deeply enough, because it is too deep to measure.