Lake Winnipegosis - a sorry tale

Yesterday, at the University of Manitoba, I talked about the environment and the economy for a lecture which was part of the Clayton H. Riddell Faculty of the Environment, Earth and Resources Seminar Series. . Sadly there are instances of poor environmental stewardship which have had large economic costs to Manitobans. One of these is on Lake Winnipegosis. The graph above shows the pickerel (walleye) catch on Lake Winnipegosis from 1931 to 1998 as reported in a third party review of the fishery. The walleye fishery on Lake Winnipegosis crashed in the early 1960s.

A very similar crash occurred on Lake Erie in Ontario. For Lake Erie, a science-based management regime was introduced to normalize the walleye fishery starting in the early 1970s. By 1980, the walleye production on Lake Erie had been returned to historic levels or above historic levels (which for Lake Erie were 3.6 million kg per year) .

For Lake Winnipegosis, sadly, a similar effort was never adequately instituted by either Tory or NDP governments and the fishery has stayed depressed, producing far less than the historic catch of 1.15 million kg per year. Because the fishery has never been returned to historic levels there has been a large shortfall in income to fishermen on this lake. For the period 1980-2001, this was more than $72 million dollars of primary production lost. Based on the normal multiplier effect to the local economy from such primary production, the loss to communities around Lake Winnipegosis is in fact much higher than this.

As Liberals we believe such poor stewardship of our fisheries resources is unacceptable, and we are dedicated to efforts to bring in much better stewardship than has occurred under successive Tory and NDP governments.