A B.C.-based conservation group is slamming cuts in the 2025 federal budget, it says could have dire implications for the Skeena watershed.
In its Comprehensive Expenditure Review, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) indicated it would reduce spending by $54 million in 2026-2027, $101.9 million in 2027-2028, and $193.8 million in both 2028-2029 and 2029-2030.
Julia Hill, executive director of Terrace’s SkeenaWild, called the $550 million cuts over four years “unprecedented,” comparing them to the $100 million Stephen Harper proposed in his 2013 budget.
“Carney’s cuts will have devastating consequences for salmon, economies, and communities across Canada, including right here in the Skeena,” Hill said.
“It shows a stunning lack of regard for our region and the things people here value.”
DFO said it would achieve its goal by winding down “research and monitoring activities that have either achieved their objectives or for which alternative data sources exist, scale back certain policy and program capabilities, reduce management layers, and right-size internal services.”
Hill told Black Press Media that monitoring is already inadequate in the Skeena watershed and reducing it further would make any data collected virtually meaningless.
“This plan to ‘wind down research and monitoring’ to achieve savings targets comes as Pacific salmon escapement monitoring is already at an all-time low—falling by nearly half since the 1980s,” added Kaitlin Yehle, SkeenaWild’s fisheries director.
In a press release on Nov. 5, the organization said DFO should be moving forward with its past mandate.
“Five years ago, the federal government modernized Canada’s Fisheries Act to better protect, restore, and sustain Canada’s fisheries,” the release stated. “The reforms had broad, non-partisan support from First Nations, environmental groups, anglers, and the fishing industry.”
Hill said the department has not achieved those goals, and these cuts will prevent them from doing so.
“Instead of delivering on past commitments, today’s budget signals a retreat from science and monitoring— the very foundations of sustainable fisheries management,” she said.
However, the department says it is also going to modernize its fisheries management system by leveraging artificial intelligence and other digital tools that “will free up time for fisheries officers to spend in communities and on the water enforcing fisheries regulations.”
That too rang hollow for SkeenaWild.
“The government claims DFO will do more with less, but there’s absolutely no evidence that’s possible,” said Yehle. “If past cuts are any indication, we’re likely to see the further degradation of Canada’s fisheries resources at a time when we should be doing more to rebuild them.”
Hill added that cuts to DFO are even more worrisome at a time when the federal government also plans to fast-track major industrial projects it deems to be in the national interest.
“Fast tracking major projects while reducing DFO’s oversight and monitoring capacity is a double whammy, a recipe for disaster when it comes to wild salmon, their habitat, and fisheries,” she said.