What Healthy Herring Mean for Vancouver Island’s Economy
What Healthy Herring Mean for Vancouver Island’s Economy
By Luke Barber, MBA
If you live on the islands or the mainland coast of British Columbia, you’ve likely heard discussions about herring — the roe fishery, the spawn, the predators that follow. But when we talk about herring, it’s worth asking a simple economic question:
What role do herring play in our coastal economy — and how does that compare to the industries that depend on a healthy marine ecosystem?
Recent estimates place the total annual value of the BC commercial herring industry in the range of $30–40 million. In some recent seasons, roughly $4 million of that has been landed value paid directly to fish harvesters in the Strait of Georgia. The remainder of the fishery’s value is realized later in the supply chain — processing, export, and roe markets, much of which goes overseas.
When we widen the lens, however, the scale shifts.
Whale watching and marine wildlife viewing in British Columbia generate over $200 million annually in direct economic activity. Recreational fishing contributes more than $1 billion annually in total economic activity across the province — supporting guides, lodges, marinas, fuel docks, mechanics, hospitality, and accommodation providers.
According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s 2023 tidal fisheries economic analysis, 85% of fishing days and 71% of expenditures occurred in the Strait of Georgia, Barkley Sound, Johnstone Strait, and the West Coast of Vancouver Island. These are the very waters where herring spawn and where much of Vancouver Island’s marine recreation and tourism economy operates.
Pacific herring are a foundational forage species. When they spawn along our shoreline in early spring, they feed Chinook salmon, seabirds, humpback whales, sea lions, and Southern Resident killer whales. They link ocean productivity to every level of the marine food web. Their abundance influences predator presence, wildlife viewing opportunities, and the stability of fisheries that depend on salmon and other species.
Herring populations are naturally variable — they rise and fall with ocean conditions, plankton availability, and climate influences. But natural variability becomes more complex when harvest pressure coincides with spawning aggregations. Removing biomass at peak concentration can influence not only the present year’s catch, but the resilience of future year classes.
So the economic question becomes one of scale and structure:
How does a $30–40 million extractive fishery fit within a coastal economy where ocean-based tourism and recreation generate hundreds of millions — even billions — in activity each year, much of it concentrated in the same regions?
This isn’t about fishers versus tourism operators. It’s about thoughtful economic alignment. Extraction generates value at the point of harvest. A stable forage base generates renewable value — year after year — across multiple sectors.
Healthy herring don’t just support whales.
They support economies.
Photos: Hornby & Denman Islands — 2024 & 2025
Visit lukeb_photography on Instagram for more visual documentation of the spawn and the wildlife it sustains.
Navigating the Systems: FREE Tax Clinic & Mental Wellness Resources Fair Coming this March
Navigating the Systems: FREE Tax Clinic & Mental Wellness Resources Fair Coming this March
Save the date for the SUPER TAX CLINIC & RESOURCES FAIR, happening at the Hornby Community Hall on March 11th (10:30am-3pm) and the Denman Community Hall on March 12th (10:30am-4pm).
For questions or updates on past or present tax returns, benefits, or missing T4 / T5 slips & Notices of Assessments (NOA), this is the opportunity to speak to in-person outreach representatives from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) and Service Canada to help you navigate the system.
Please bring government issued ID. If you already have your NOAs and tax slips, it will save you time. This will be a one-on-one service, based on a first come, first served basis. If you have all your information and just need help with getting your taxes done, limited volunteer tax filing will also be available on premises.
The Ministry of Social Development and Poverty Reduction will also be in attendance in their mobile office, and have experience in providing identifying information for clients that don’t have their ID. They can also help with provincial income or disability assistance, including cheque-printing capabilities, and are equipped with outreach supplies for those who are unhoused or precariously housed.
To help navigate some of the other challenging systems out there, representatives from a variety of organizations have been invited to inform and guide Islanders to local resources available to them. Information tables will cover gender clinic services, community and benefits advocacy, sexual assault services and counseling, withdrawal management and detox services, and crisis line information.
This is a free event hosted by Hornby Denman Health, so come out! Get informed, get some help, get connected.
If you have any questions, contact Lleilah @ (778) 585-4585 or lleilah@hornbydenmanhealth.com
Trivia Night! March 14 at the Community Hall
Trivia Night! March 14 at the Community Hall
By Daniel Farrow
Does a platypus have nipples? What was the original colour of Oscar the Grouch? Which country eats the most chocolate? Get ready to show off your ability to retain random facts and quibble with friends at the annual Denman Island Trivia Night!
Doors open at 5 with a $20 meal of chili, chips and a drink token for those who want to skip the dishes. Game starts at 6. There will be free childcare if you need it and an open bar if you need that too (not mutually exclusive). There is no pre-registration required this year. Bring a team of 8 or form one at the event. $20 per player, all in support of the students at Denman Island School!
Oh and: No, Orange and Switzerland.
BC Ferries Million Dollar No-Fault Executive Payouts Reward Failure
BC Ferries Million Dollar No-Fault Executive Payouts Reward Failure
Despite the Comptroller General characterizing BC Ferries as a “culture of secrecy and enrichment” in 2009, executives continue receiving secret “no-fault” million-dollar exit payouts that violate the Coastal Ferry Act. These taxpayer “safe harbour” exit payments help to explain why successive CEOs perpetuate the same failures dating to the Fast Ferries scandal in 1999—with impunity. At the same time, Premier David Eby is cutting $1.4 billion from affordable housing, stalling hospital and health care projects, freezing funding for promised affordable child care, and eliminating 15,000 public sector jobs, claiming these cuts are inevitable given the province’s record-breaking debt. Continuing to increase funding for BC Ferries’ broken business model and declining service, however, is not fiscally inevitable.
In response to BC Ferries’ record-breaking debt and projected fare increases in excess of 30%, CEO Nicolas Jimenez proposes receiving substantially increased funding from all levels of government—not to “clean up” his predecessor’s failures, but to maintain an untenable status quo that violates the Coastal Ferry Act’s over-arching mandate to provide “safe and reliable service in a cost-effective manner.” The following “no fault” severance packages both shield and reward successive CEOs for repeating documented failures that could be averted with transparency and enforceable governance:
Mark Collins (CEO 2017–2022): Fired in July 2022 for 173 sailing cancellations in 28 days, approving an 18.3% executive raise while suppressing union wages, and deploying defective “green fleet” vessels. His “no-fault” payout was $1.3 million including 24-month salary continuation of $534,589, benefits, and $88,269 accrued vacation—kept secret.
Corrine Storey (Chief Operating Officer 2017–2024): Asked to quietly take early retirement for overlooking Coastal Class motor failures costing taxpayers hundreds of millions. Her “no-fault” payout was $1.1 million including 24-month salary continuation of $528,127, benefits, and undisclosed vacation time—kept secret.
Nicolas Jimenez (CEO 2023–present): Hired ostensibly to clean up his predecessor’s failures, if fired today after three years, Jimenez’s exit package would be $1.4 million including 24-month salary continuation of $530,441, benefits, and accrued vacation, plus a 120-month “bridge” pension that could total $600,000 additional if his ICBC pension exceeded his BC Ferries pension by $5,000 monthly—kept secret.
While “without cause” termination clauses are standard for Crown executives, they are legally paired with an 18-month salary continuance cap and Treasury Board approval. Severances in the private sector strongly scrutinize rare “no-fault” clauses and also limit salary continuance to 18 months. By exceeding public and private sector severances, BC Ferries executive exit payouts violate the Coastal Ferry Act; and because the corporation is neither Crown nor private, executive payouts bypass provincial guardrails. This explains why Jimenez, for example, is free to exceed his predecessor’s failures by:
- Escalating conflict with the BC Ferry and Marine Workers Union: Union President Eric McNeely states that arbitration under Jimenez’s leadership is the most “difficult” since the corporation was privatized, that the arbitrated 1.65% wage award is devoid of logical justification, and that BC Ferries is waging “psychological warfare” on workers by even removing kettles and coffee pots from vessels — while executives received 28.95% salary increases since 2022.
- Systematically denying FOI requests for defective new procurements claiming “business secrecy” — including the decision paper demanded by the federal Transportation Standing Committee on BC Ferries’ contract for Chinese-built vessels, arguing the committee was acting outside its constitutional authority.
- Gaslighting the public with a 99.9% service metric that counts breakdowns as delays rather than cancellations — the more honest 83.3% delay metric tells a different story.
- Withholding the 2023 Shirocca report from the federal committee — which faulted BC Ferries for accepting low rather than accurate foreign bids, deferring repair expenses, ignoring expert advice, and lacking transparency when vessels fail.
- Claiming the lowest procurement price is prudent and in alignment with the Coastal Ferry Act: accepting the lowest bid for Chinese-built vessels despite the Act mandating “cost-effective” — not cheapest — service, and ordering four new vessels from the same Romanian shipyard that delivered the highly defective Island Class vessels.
- Claiming the Denman cable ferry is a “green asset” despite using two-and-a-half times more fuel than a conventional vessel and requiring frequent annual replacement of one-mile-long stainless steel cable costing an estimated $230,000, shipped from abroad.
- Disbanding the Ferry Advisory Committees that provided 30 years of volunteer community oversight, while claiming to listen to customers.
When 35 coastal leaders representing the Union of BC Municipalities met with Eby demanding accountability for chronic service unreliability, he claimed helplessness as the province is “at arm’s length” from a corporation it created, wholly owns, and subsidizes. When they met with Jimenez demanding the Ferry Advisory Committees be reinstated and a timeline for change to reverse the corporation’s “existential threat” to coastal communities, he claimed he was “out of options” due to having an underfunded and ageing fleet.
This is not political theatre—it is political farce that will continue to be sponsored by taxpayers who witness funding for affordable housing, healthcare and jobs cut due to rising provincial debt and Eby’s resolve to keep the farce performing. Without transparency and reform, customers and taxpayers will continue funding executive payouts that reward them for a deteriorating essential service and fracturing marine highway. How long will this farce keep running that shields BC Ferries executives, the regulators and government from accountability?
More Art, Less Commerce?
More Art, Less Commerce? By Cylon2036. We/Us
In the once pure meadow of Handcrafted Virtue, beneath the fluttering prayer flags of Ethical Intent, the Local Artisan stands hunched over a reclaimed barn-wood workbench, whispering apologies to the spirit of Late Capitalism before scanning a QR code.
Behold the potter, who once shaped clay in defiance of Babylon, now muttering, “Tap, insert, or credit?” as a square white rectangle, the sacred Tablet of Transaction, glows with the cold light of Visa. Observe the weaver, braiding ethically sourced alpaca into scarves of resistance, only to slap on a price tag that reads $48 plus tax), thereby surrendering her soul to the Marketplace Leviathan.
They told us they were different. They said they were “community based,” and “intentional.” But now we see the truth that they have booths. They have branding and they have Facebook. On Saturdays, under the solemn banners of the Farmers & Artisans Market, these gentle makers engage in the most depraved ritual of all. An exchange for money.
The woodworker sands his cedar cutting boards with monk-like devotion, then, without shame, calculates a margin. A margin! As if survival itself were a line item on a spreadsheet of moral compromise. He murmurs about “covering material costs,” as though birch plywood were not a gateway drug to full-blown commodification.
And the soap maker, who once denounced Big Detergent in hushed kitchen-table circles, now hawks lavender bars like a perfumed peddler of domestic conformity. “It’s small batch,” she insists, as if scale were the only sin. Yet she accepts cash. and she makes change. She even rounds up. This is how corruption begins.
First, you knit mittens to keep your neighbours warm. Next, you attach a price tag. Then, before you know it, you’re offering bundle deals. “Three for twenty.” Three! For twenty! The language of empire! The baker who once gifted sourdough loaves in acts of carbohydrate solidarity now speaks casually of “overhead.”
Overhead, that invisible ceiling pressing down upon her moral skylight. She claims she must pay rent for the commercial kitchen, buy flour, perhaps even electricity. Excuses, all of it. In the golden age of barter, did the blacksmith complain of forge insurance? Did the cooper speak of booth fees? No. They simply perished quietly, unmonetized.
And what of the jeweller, hammering silver into talismans of authenticity? He declares that each piece is “one of a kind,” yet suspiciously produces several that look almost identical. Is this not mass production in an artisanal mask? The revolution was not meant to have SKUs.
Even their rebellion is curated. They decry global supply chains while awaiting their shipment of biodegradable packaging. They scorn corporate logos while refining their own. They reject the “rat race,” yet race to secure the corner stall with optimal foot traffic. All the while, they whisper the most scandalous justification of all: “I have to pay the bills.” Ah yes, bills! The ultimate collaborator.
For in the end, what is a local artisan but a small-scale participant in the Great Bazaar of Necessity? They do not topple the system; they table at it. They do not abolish commerce; they apply for a vendor permit. And yet, how cunningly they disguise it! They call it “supporting local.” They call it “community resilience.” They call it “keeping the money here.”
As though currency, once baptized in proximity, becomes holy. Let us be honest. These crafters are not outside the machine. They are its hand-stitched accessories that sand its edges. They glaze its ceramics and embroider its tote bags. They survive, which of course, is the most unforgivable act of all.
For in this fallen world of invoices and invoices-to-be, even the purest maker must kneel before the altar of transaction, whispering a benediction over the debit terminal: “May my square reader forgive me, for I have priced.”
The Book Report
The Book Report
By A Bae Hel
I read a lot of books. A LOT. There have been phases in my life where I was too busy or too tired to read. Books have carried me through the best of times and the worst of times. They are the friends we never knew we needed, happy to be shoved into a bag, gathering dust on a shelf, lost under the seat of the car. I am not an expert on literature, but I am willing to explore the genres and find something to engage my mind and hopefully, create growth. I used to be a book snob; only reading the paper kind. Then when I was traveling quite a bit, I discovered the magic of kindle, carrying a library with me. I started dabbling with audiobooks to find a means of providing my mum, who was losing her sight, a means of stimulating her mind. Now I vary between the technologies to get my daily fix.
There is No Antimemetics Division by qntm
Audiobook on Audible
What the hell did I just read?
Occasionally, and it seems to be very rarely these days, you emerge from a book with confusion and wonder at the mind that created whatever it was you just read. I think the last one was Naked Lunch by Burroughs. That was a wild ride.
But this, this was within the science fiction genre, but science fiction we rarely see anymore. Science fiction with a reality completely unrelatable to our current one, except that there are humans. Mind you, some of them are simply shells for the vast and terrifying entity that is slowly, or rapidly sucking up their memories. These entities are intellectual viruses, meme ideas that overwrite your reality. The monsters among us, unperceived are feeding on memories, and memories are how we define who we are. When your memories are gone, what, or who are you? Do you exist?
I am reminded of the nameless horrors of Lovecraft and the Silence of Doctor Who. The writing is cleverly crafted to engage and build the terrifying philosophical mystery evolving in installments and snippets before you. Do ideas create reality? Can a meme start a war? End an empire? Destroy a civilization? Why can’t I remember any more?
The characters are likeable. It is tragic and scary and puts the best of science fiction and horror together on a plate for you to subsume into your psyche and to grip your imagination for days after.
I recommend. I give this one- 5 sleepless nights.