It seems Manitoba Sustainable Development – Fisheries Branch, has been in the news a little more than usual this past couple of years. With the Lake Winnipeg South Basin commercial and recreational fisheries under scrutiny, to the short staffing at the Whiteshell Fish Hatchery, the branch is showing its’ weariness from an apparent, decades long, systematic dismantling by various elected governments.
There are many factors one can attribute to this deterioration. However, I am not drafting this to lay blame or to point fingers. I simply want to show the factual changes that have occurred, some of the reasons for said changes and possibly offer up some solutions. Just basically how things used to be and how they exist in today’s world…so to speak. All of this under the auspices of my stint with the branch from 1979 to 2016 and of course in my humble opinion.
SUMMER STUDENTS, FIELD WORK AND JUICY BUDGETS…
THE EARLY YEARS
During my summer student stint from 1979 – 1981 or so, some 10-12 students were hired annually to conduct primary lake surveys on remote lakes in Eastern and Northern Manitoba. We were employed through the popular Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP). Head office in Winnipeg was the center and was always bustling with many staff, both part time and permanent. We would meet other STEP students staging there as well, soon off to numerous Fisheries Branch based projects across the province.
In our travels to work–based locations we would meet the regionally based Fisheries Managers and Technicians. These were the folks that actually managed the fishery in their respective areas. Rubber boots on the ground. There was consistently about 3-4 ‘fishheads’ in each region except Gimli which had about 8. Not surprising considering the enormity of the regions commercial fishing industry.
Head office works more with the legislatively mandated duties like regulations and licensing for commercial and recreational fisheries, as well as habitat issues/concerns. There was also a research component for both types of fisheries coupled with a team of six fish agers who read structures for both research and regional monitoring activities. Add a robust administrative staff and hatchery employees, you’ve got about 120 full time Fisheries staff, with relatively beefy budgets. The glory days they tell me.
EROSION IS DEPLETION
Okay. Flash forward to 2018. To the best of my knowledge, we have 12 regional full time staff, 11 in head office and about 7 at the hatchery. This includes 2 seconded staff to other departments. So an active compliment of 28 full time staff in 2018. Add two regional retirements in spring of 2019 that may or may not be filled, that makes 26 full time staff running the Manitoba Fisheries Branch ship. ( Editors Note- those two regional retirement positions have not been filled as of yet)
Now in simple terms, that is a reduction of about 94 Fisheries positions, or approximately 78% over a 38 year span. That is a crap load of jobs. No doubt.
However, there is a caveat attached to this garage math. Over that same period, we saw the Grand Rapids Hatchery turned over to Manitoba Hydro, including the jobs. Major restructuring has occurred numerous times resulting in positions lost or reinvented. Incredible advances in technology have resulted in lost positions. Clerical staff use to type everything that was hand written, from letters to manuscript reports. Man, it would take me an afternoon to make a couple of graphs or at least a month for a complicated lake depth chart. Data analysis time has been accelerated a thousand percent and field techniques not only improved in quality but in task duration as well.
With all these changes, including reduction in staff, annual budgets were shrinking at about the same pace. Instead of having a budget that allowed staff to complete field work, go to meetings and even talk on the phone, alternate sources for cash had to be developed and introduced to the game. Fund sources such as the Habitat Heritage Corporation, the Fisheries Enhancement Initiative (FEI), the Fisheries Enhancement Fund (FEF) and now the Fish and Wildlife Enhancement Fund (FWEF) are some examples of this. While this was indeed an adaptation to ongoing events, a welcomed evolution, there was to some an unforeseen negative result. This ‘paranoia’ came to fruition. Annual budgets for field projects eventually dried up to kibble. Today, annual budgets pay for computer use, cell and satellite phones, various administrative accouterments and perhaps a drive around the block a couple of times in a leased vehicle. Just enough to exist and perhaps fly your desk around the office wearing your rain gear while singing sea shanties.
It has been in the last decade or so that the ‘job’ has become tougher to accomplish in terms of day to day duties. Head office has definitely experienced the more drastic changes, especially in terms of staff. Many real good Provincial Fisheries folks left the branch to ‘greener pastures’ and likely less stress from having to take on many portfolios due to a shrinking staff compliment. We lost at least 4 real good people to Manitoba Hydro in a relatively short period of time.
GOT ANY SPARE CHANGE?
By the time I retired in 2016 from the eastern region we were cut so close to the bone you couldn’t make a soup out of the leftovers. Because there were no leftovers. But again, its all about adaptation. We accomplished a lot of good and important work, regardless of these constraints. I often had an oddball thought that if we continued to produce under these conditions, things would get worse. Wham…
So why the cuts and why the carnage? We certainly were not the only ones. I get the fact that most governments on the continent have gone through a similar history. We have adapted. The research and monitoring that has been fine tuned over the years has yielded solid results. Not perfect but at the very least, leading edge. But it is going to get to the point where the last remaining fisheries people will be flying that desk around the office, hoping the fish survive the constant pressure that success brings. But let’s look at some numbers and I’ll let the readers come to their own conclusions.
BY THE NUMBERS – GARAGE MATH AND REALITY
Here are some stats derived from various government documents available online and from a full bodied, comprehensive economic impact study completed by Travel Manitoba in 2010. More garage math if you don’t mind.
Based on the 2010 economic benefit analysis of fishing and hunting in Manitoba, each angler averaged $2981 in expenses annually. This is an average for all Manitoba, non-resident Canadian and non-resident recreational angling license buyers combined. According to government reports a total of 179,490 angling licenses were sold in 2010.
Using the average angler expense figure multiplied by total license sales, this would have generated over $500,000,000 in recreational angling related revenues. Yikes. That is substantial. Not to mention the 2.7 million collected from actual license sales.
Here is where it gets interesting. The annual Fisheries Branch budget in 2010/11 was approximately four million which includes an annual cost of some $410,000 annually for freight assistance for northern commercial fishers. So once again, in simple garage math, a four million dollar investment grosses some 500 million bucks for our economy. Not bad. This does not reflect the cost of enforcement and related branches. They have their own budgets. But even if you doubled the annual budget or tripled it, the return remains the same. Awesome. This was also at a downturn in non-resident angler participation as a result of the recession the United States was in at the time. Things have rebounded since then.
COULDA SHOULDA WOULDA
There are things Fisheries could have done better to perhaps offset the inevitable. Certainly, strong leadership over the years could have set a better tone in both the Leg and within the branch itself. Staff morale is important. Additionally, I found that the branch was the worst at defending itself from misinformation and absolutely horrible at letting everyday Manitobans know what, why, where and how we were doing things on the landscape. If most of the public doesn’t know what you are doing, then you simply do not exist. I found that out quickly when I moved to the Manitoba Parkland years ago. In my little world when problems came up, solutions usually followed.
ADAPTATION NOT MUTATION
Okay. Enough already. How can Manitoba Fisheries Branch continue to exist and produce quality results? Besides the obvious, I think the branch needs to change, in a similar way to what has occurred out west with the Freshwater Fisheries Society of British Columbia (FWFSBC) and/or the Alberta Conservation Association (ACA).
These entities exist and survive on angling license revenues 100%. A made in Manitoba solution with these models in mind seems doable and reeks of common sense. The details of such an endeavor have been bantered about in the past. Our Whiteshell Fish Hatchery exists only because it is 100% funded by license revenues. Otherwise the government at the time of change would have tossed it aside.
As anglers we need to unite. In a large way. Participación masiva! Join a local fishing club. If you do not like the way things are going let your politicians know. Let the Minister of Sustainable Development know. Hell, let everyone know. Do it all the time because it will work eventually. Change comes with persistence, with commonality and with passion. Manitoban’s care. We are halfway there.