It is about as official an answer as the public is likely to get. Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) acknowledged Tuesday what locals have been hearing for months – the DFO office in Squamish is closing and will be relocated as of April next year.
“The building is being sold and personnel will be relocated prior to the spring 2019 deadline to vacate,” DFO said in an emailed statement to The Squamish Chief.
The lease for the DFO Squamish field office on Hunter Place is being terminated by the property owner.
“DFO senior management is currently weighing options for relocating the employees that will continue to provide operations for the Squamish area.”
No employees are losing their jobs due to this change, and the Squamish area will receive no reduced level of coverage, according to the statement from the department.
The Tenderfoot fish hatchery will continue to operate in Squamish, and offers a possible location for additional programming.
“Conservation and Protection will continue to provide robust compliance and enforcement activities in the Howe Sound area while options are being considered,” continued the statement.
The Squamish-based fisheries officers monitor the entire Sea to Sky Corridor, including Howe Sound.
For months, The Chief has been hearing from trusted local sources that the Squamish field office was being shuttered and the staff transferred to Steveston, but the official word from DFO has been that nothing definitive had been decided.
The news about Steveston being the new location has still not officially been confirmed. However, last week, at a Sea to Sky Corridor workshop by DFO on the protection of glass sponge reefs, department staff told those in attendance that the closure and move to Steveston was a done deal. Three people in attendance confirmed to The Chief that this was said.
The move has upset local conservationists.
“Without an office here in Squamish, their response time is going to be very long if they need to travel all the way from Vancouver to deal with infractions,” Randall Lewis, the environmental co-ordinator for the Squamish Nation and a member of the Sea to Sky Fisheries Roundtable, previously told The Chief. “They have enough issues dealing with the existing capacity at this point in time, because of all the cutbacks.”
Lewis said the Squamish River faces additional fishing pressure each time the Fraser River is closed, and enforcement is essential.
Chessy Knight, president of the Squamish Watershed Society, also previously expressed alarm at the prospect of the move.
“If they regionalize and close this office and put those fishery officers out of Steveston and assign them to this area, we will not get the same attention,” Knight said back when the rumours began to swirl about the closure. “It’s just not possible.”
Contacted Tuesday, Dave Brown of the Sea to Sky Fisheries Roundtable said the news meant "death by a thousand cuts" for DFO.
Historically, three fisheries officers were working out of the Squamish office, but that was recently reduced to two through the winter.
When the office goes, the Sea to Sky Corridor would also be losing its DFO community liaison, a staffer who brings the Salmonids in the Classroom program to kids in Squamish schools.
There are currently three officers temporarily in Squamish for the summer, which Brown said happened because of lobbying by fisheries advocates. Their presence has allowed DFO to do more patrols, which in turn has increased their effectiveness in the area, according to Brown.
MP Pamela Goldsmith-Jones is currently on vacation, so was unavailable to comment. She previously said no decision had been made on the closure.
In an email Tuesday, her assistant said Goldsmith-Jones will continue to work toward a local solution.
"Please note that this issue is of great importance to her and she will continue to advocate for a DFO office in Squamish," the email stated.
Jonathan Wilkinson, the newly appointed minister of fisheries, oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, did not respond to a request for comment by press deadline.
– With files from Haley Ritchie
