Swift Creek is located in Valemount, BC. 

And what’s so special about it?

“This is one of the furthest places that salmon spawn.”

Bruce Wilkinson should know. The reason salmon continue to spawn in this stream is in large part thanks to his efforts.

Bruce is a streamkeeper – the quintessential community steward. He saw a stream being polluted, degraded and neglected and decided to take action.

“I kind of live by a code that says, ‘you shouldn’t say somebody should do it, do it yourself’.”

Why a streamkeeper? Bruce says it’s because, “how unique the lifecycle is of these. Because we’re so far up the system, the water’s cold, everything about [salmon’s] stages of life are different.”

He’s right – these Chinook salmon are unique. This run is part of the second longest – and second highest – salmon migration on Earth and, more than that, they help sustain one of the largest inland temperate rainforests in the world. 

To ensure that’s always the case, Bruce went to work. 

But even if the labour was free, restoration – the materials, the expertise – wasn’t. Who paid the freight? Not the community or the government and its many fish-focused agencies. 

“[We got] $700,000 worth of improvements. But that only started because industry gave us the initial money. Because Kinder Morgan gave us a start-up grant of $5000. Now, with $700,000 worth of improvements to this stream for salmon habitat.”

In other words, according to Bruce, the only reason salmon are still spawning in Swift Creek is because of the twinning of the Trans-Mountain Pipeline that runs right through Valemount.

Bruce acknowledges, “the pipeline project. [There is] great opposition to that.”

But Bruce tells us, in addition to helping create jobs in rural Valemount, this resource project is opening doors to restoration up and down the Fraser River – often referred to as the greatest salmon river on the planet.

“There’s about 800 spawning streams between here and Vancouver. Everyone has something unique and different about it. But how do we do it and maintain?”

The answer, according to Bruce, is finding ways to create jobs that create prosperity and drive community support, in turn, creating the conditions to help nature: “You have to know what’s valuable to your community.”

And, in Valemount, the resource industry is valuable – to their economy and their local environment.

Bruce believes his story is an important lesson: though we often blame resource development for the degradation of the environment, we don’t often appreciate what resource companies contribute back to the environment.

Augusta Lipscombe agrees.

“Canada has approximately 10% of the world’s forests but almost 40% of the world’s certified forests (meaning they meet the standards of internationally recognized, third-party standards). These achievements demonstrate our commitment to sustainable forest management.”

Augusta is with Forests Ontario – a quasi-industry-governmental hybrid agency that’s responsible for replanting forests after they’ve been logged. And Augusta reminds us, the logging industry in Ontario impacts, “less than 0.5 per cent of Ontario’s provincial forests on Crown land…each year, and 100 per cent of harvested forest must be successfully regenerated (by law).”

August adds. “Forests Ontario’s 50 Million Tree Program (a goal to plant 50 million trees) supports more than 300 full-time seasonal forestry jobs and generates a total GDP impact of over $12.6 million per year.”

Those are all big numbers and that’s only Ontario – only restoration work in Ontario.

Resource industries of all stripes do considerable reclamation work – either through direct efforts, funding work required by government regulations or supporting non-profits who take on the task themselves, explains Mohnish Kamat – one of Canada’s leading financial executives.

“One of the things that corporations do well because of limited resources is bring quickly focus to a conversation.”

Mohnish says that’s fair, given the resources removed from the land; given the profit generated from public land. “Companies are starting to become more and more aware of their corporate responsibility.”

But reclamation of habitat isn’t the full story of the resource extraction industry. 

Hal Kvisle points out, “even here in Alberta people don’t really understand the benefit of the resources industry. If you think about the where Alberta is today, with approaching 4 million people, and compare that to the provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, both of which were quite a bit bigger in population terms than Alberta 85 years ago. You could see that the reason these places thrived and prospered is the development of energy resources.”

Hal is the former CEO of Trans-Canada Pipelines and is considered one of the energy industry’s leading voices. Hal says that success has allowed Alberta to create the second largest pool of skilled workers on the planet. Meaning?

“We’re so much better equipped today than we were 5o years ago, to actually generate significant economic value without being harmful to the environment.” 

But a successful resource industry doesn’t just mean innovation; “ it’s easy to say that the royalties that companies pay go into provincial coffers and pay for schools and hospitals and things like that. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg. 

It’s true: The resource extraction industry does pay for a fair number of hospitals and schools and roads, but they pay for a lot more than that.

Why?

Because the resource industry in Canada pays governments, on average, $21.4 billion a year in tax. But government revenue also comes from trading. We are, after all, not only a resource-based economy, we’re also a trading nation. And natural resources account for over $250 billion of Canada’s yearly exports.

But Hal says, “the real benefit is in the high-quality employment that these companies offer their employees. The very interesting work that these people do.”

When there is no global pandemic, almost 18 million Canadians are employed in a given year. Almost two million of those jobs – directly or indirectly – stem from the resource industry. 

Which is nice, but so too is this: “The very significant income taxes that those individuals pay. So it’s really much more money that flows through the employees to both to the Government of Canada and the Government of Alberta. That’s the bigger fish.”

It is.

The consequence is that the resource industry accounts for almost 17% of Canada’s Gross Domestic Product – the most commonly used metric to determine the health of our economy. And a healthy economy is about more than government revenue or balanced budgets – it determines things like credit scores which really helps when, you know, the nation is a little short on cash money during a global pandemic. In fact, borrowing ability is extremely important to Canada because even when there’s not a global pandemic, we borrow a lot of money to fund our social services.

Why am I telling you all of this? 

Because even when companies aren’t planting trees or restoring streams, they are giving a lot of revenue to governments at every level. And guess who is the largest funder of conservation in Canada? That’s right: the government.

That’s not the case everywhere. 

In some countries, environmental funding is community-based: Supported largely by donations to local non-profits. And that exists here, but it’s dwarfed by government funding. Which is a good thing, as Canada isn’t a particularly generous nation, in terms of individual philanthropy, so we probably don’t want conservation to be funded by the individual. 

In the United States, hunting heavily funds conservation. The model isn’t easily transferable to Canada, given our smaller population and the fact our culture doesn’t embrace guns to the same level as America’s. Which isn’t to say hunters don’t fund conservation – they do, and in a big way. But some argue, like biologist Shelley Alexander, that this funding model is self-fulfilling – that it only supports conservation that supports hunting, adjusting wildlife population levels for hunters, not nature. Bottom line: Conservation funding through hunting is also a model that’s not without controversy.

And that brings us back to the resource industry. 

Much of what ills biodiversity in Canada is blamed on resource development. Some of that blame is deserved, but it should also be put into context. The largest driver of biodiversity loss in Canada is agriculture or human food production, though housing – in cities and rural communities – shouldn’t get off that easy either.

And though real estate development and agriculture help pay the conservation bill too – through tax and that paid by its employees – they don’t pay as much of the tab as the resource industry. 

Is the resource industry the biggest industry in Canada? No. But if you remove the resource industry? That’s a mighty big hole in the federal treasury. 

Not that anyone is seriously suggesting the resource industry should disappear tomorrow or ever, but a whole heck of a lot of people, including cultural anthropologist Sierra Dakin-Kuiper are talking about this.

“We really need to start thinking about intangible ways. How we can help create and support new economies for people who are working in resource extractive industries that are really doing injustices. So this isn’t to say that I’m anti-jobs, I’m really advocating for a just transition.”

The ‘just transition’ Sierra is referring to might sound reasonable, until you realize there are few industries that can make up the various types of revenue – or create the high quality and high paying jobs – that the resource industry provides in Canada.

And unless Canada creates the next several Metas and Twitters and TikToks, the growing technology industry doesn’t offer the type of investor returns that the resource industry provides – that’s money in the pockets of would-be philanthropists and taxpayers and retiring teachers on a level few are accounting for.

So, yes, the resource industry matters and supporting economic growth is literally imperative to the future of existing parks, species recovery plans, invasive species mitigation efforts, wildlife management research and oversight, and stewardship programs. Not to mention the laundry list of work that’s not being funded – and needs to be funded – if we’re to safeguard our biodiversity.

But before you think that’s the final answer – help the economy to help nature – consider the flip side of the argument.

Business leader Jimmy Pattison points out, “we know more about the world and the earth and the atmosphere and with more population in the world, it’s important that we pay a lot of attention to the environment.”

Jimmy is one of the world’s most successful entrepreneurs; “I don’t think that’s correct, but I’m working at it.”

How? In part, forestry and fishing – industries that impact the environment, but also industries impacted by the environment. And that’s why, Jimmy tells us, to grow our economy, we need to prioritize nature.

Why?

“It’s the right thing to do.”

For nature. And for business.

“I think it’s good business.”

It’s not something Jimmy always understood, “when I grew up, I don’t recall anybody talking about the environment.”

But today? You’d be hard pressed to find a bigger advocate for nature. It’s why this debate, Jimmy believes, is simple.

“Because it’s for real. This is mother nature here, giving us a wonderful asset and we have to look after it.”

And the key word there is asset. Nature gives us life of course, but it also gives many of us our livelihoods. After all, the resource industry is nothing without nature – in fact, very few industries can withstand ecological loss.

How so? Well, again, consider the Fraser River.

The Fraser – like all major river systems across this country – is massively important. It’s a food-producing resource, an economic engine and a vital transportation route for cultures since time immemorial. Today, in addition to the river basin being home to two-thirds of Canada’s third most populous province, it’s also responsible for 80% of the GDP of one of Canada’s richest provinces.

It’s why river systems are amongst the most important pieces of infrastructure in our society. Highways and railways and buildings are nice. But not many of those infrastructure investments yield trillions of dollars in value. 

The Fraser and the other 24 major river systems in Canada supply one-fifth of the world’s clean water supply. That’s priceless.

The Fraser alone delivers 113 cubic kilometres of freshwater to the ocean per year. When it’s clean and healthy, that’s taking the food generated in the mountains downriver to the ocean – and supporting the entire population along the way.

It’s also supporting one of Canada’s most important industries: Fishing.

“You think about how much money the recreational chinook [salmon] fishery alone – it’s a one billion dollar industry. That’s just recreational fisheries. Just for chinook. One billion dollar a year industry.”

Quinn Scott is a commercial fisher, but he’s worried for his job and what the loss of his industry might mean to cultures, economies and nature.

“It’s not a huge scope that I have. There have been people who have been fishing the systems I’ve been fishing for 50 years. I can’t even imagine seeing it like that. It’s only been 15 for me, and it’s brutal. It’s dark.”

Why is the economic future dark for fisheries? According to Quinn, it’s because of other economic choices we’ve made, “forestry is one of the absolute biggest causes of our stocks declining.”

Forestry along the Fraser, to be exact. But is Quinn just picking on one industry – one livelihood – to save his own? He says no.

“We could drop the axe on commercial fishing. We could say, no more for a full cycle, a 6 year cycle. We can’t just immediately shotgun, emergency fix the damage that’s been done in logging. The way a river looks after it’s headwaters have been logged – it ruins it. It becomes, essentially, a chute.”

What does that mean?

“The root structure under a 100-year-old tree on the side of a river on the side of a mountain is holding together the side of the mountain. We are clear-cutting all that stuff away and suddenly the natural heavy rainfall is no longer natural, it becomes detrimental, it becomes fatal.”

Not just for salmon or those who rely on the fishing industry. If you’ve been paying attention to the news in the last few years, you might know how far reaching the economic consequences of floods truly can be – especially in BC, especially along the Fraser River.

And as Quinn argues, all the tree planting and restoration efforts in the world can’t address the root of the problem.

“The issue with logging and forestry practices throughout history, and why it makes such a difference now is – you can’t plant a 100-year-old tree.”

Those 100-year-old trees might matter to fish and fishers, but they also matter to the logging industry. The massive trees that grow on Canada’s west coast and in the inland rainforests around Mount Robson are the most profitable type of tree to logging companies. 

Their ability to grow so old and so big? Salmon, who – thanks to bears that transport them to the forest floor – feed the trees, as decomposing salmon provide the nutrients for growth. That means as the salmon go, so too goes many of the forests in the Fraser Basin.

Valemount long-time resident, Art Carson states, “It’s a very, very complex issue, dealing with a forest.”

He should know.

“I worked for the BC Forest Service.”

Art’s a professional forester who doubles as an historian. Despite criticisms, like Quinn Scott’s, that the forest industry has impacted salmon populations and the economy in the process, Art believes the forest industry, “it’s always been a little bit better, I think, than the public sometimes thinks.”

Good or bad, as Forests Ontario’s Augusta Lipscombe adds, logging in Canada has “contributed $24.6 billion (1.6%) to Canada’s gross domestic product. The forestry industry also directly employed 209,940 people in 2017.”

But Art Carson tells us the forest industry, “won’t be quite the massive scale that it was.”

Why? 

The pine beetle, of course.

Laura Kennedy, a biologist reflects.

“I was in northern BC during the peak of that crisis, and the effects of it were visual and widespread and incredible. You would stand on a road and the only thing that you could see surrounding you was brown trees.”

Laura researched the pine beetle infestation and she says, “once the problem began, I don’t know that there was a way to actually control it.”

Why? Well, you can read the whole story here, but this is what you need to know now: For decades we suppressed naturally reoccurring fires to help our economy. But fires are actually a good thing – they help regenerate forests and control beetle populations, which exist to regenerate smaller stands of unhealthy trees. When we suppressed fires, the beetle population exploded. 

The other failsafe that long kept the beetle population in check – cold winters – also started becoming less frequent.  

With warmer winters and fewer fires, the pine beetle spread across 18 million hectares. That’s more than the size of 25 million soccer pitches and over 60% of the Fraser Basin’s total forested landscape. 

The consequence was vast and far-reaching: The logging industry and communities that rely on the industry were thrown into disarray, with many communities and companies struggling to this day. 

The dead trees, combined with salvage logging put into service to mitigate the new threat of super fires, mean that peak water flows, say after spring melt, are now 92% higher than before the pine beetle infestation. The consequence? Floods and lots of them.

Though the pine beetle has peaked in BC, it appears to be marching – and blowing with the wind, thanks to increasingly challenging weather – into the boreal forest proper. If the pine beetle gets a foothold in the boreal, it could spread across the continent north, east and south – increasing the risk of super fires, like the fire that devastated Jasper in the summer of 2024, turning carbon sinks into carbon emitters, explains Laura Kennedy.

“If all of that sort of forested area burns off, you’re going to have a lot of mudslides, and water runoff, the water retention is going to be different, and that can change the entire ecosystem.”

For biodiversity, Laura tells us one consequence of the pine beetle is, “it’s going to push wildlife populations into forest that are still healthy, and so the carrying capacity of those forests is going to be put under pressure because you’re going to have more wildlife migrating there, or simply dying off.”

But the consequence is equally severe for the economy and rural, resource-based communities. In fact, BC’s Deputy Premier Mike Farnworth told us the pine beetle’s economic toll has helped illustrate a “better understanding and a realization that climate change isn’t just about the earth warming, it is about the impact that it has. So it allows a situation such as the pine beetle to happen. Because we don’t get those cold winters anymore that would kill the larvae.”

It’s why, when asked if nature should be part of the accounting balance sheet, Principal Analyst for Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions Canada, Amanda Gierling, said: 

“I absolutely think it should. I absolutely think it should because I don’t really know how we can possibly continue down the path we are going down and not understand that the environment has a huge impact on our future.”

After all, it would help measure the future financial impact of issues like invasive species.

Gail Wallin is the chair of the Canadian Council on Invasive Species and she declares that, “every students in Canada should care about invasive species because they’re a major threat to our species at risk, they’re a major threat to our protected places, because they’ll actually change it.”

Gail reminds us why invasives are such a scourge to biodiversity.

“It’s a huge economic loss to Canada. Billions per year.”

And maybe you knew that, but did you know this?: “Invasive plants will follow corridors. In looking at maps for invasive species, invasive plants, they will actually be along the roadways and rail lines.”

Gail explains that the problem started when the first settlers, but has gotten a lot worse in recent decades, in part due to our economic supply chain.

“Many of the invasives that are in our environment, we’ve introduced. We’ve released them, we’ve planted them, etcetera.” 

But Gail believes, “we can make a huge difference by being involved.”

That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news from our former prime minister, Kim Campbell.

“Do we think we’re going to keep global stability and peace?”

Her Honour isn’t just referring to invasives or the pine beetle or salmon declines. No, our former prime minister believes the cascading effects of environmental problems will add up to major economic problems at home and abroad. And that?

“It’s a national security issue.”

Kim Campbell adds, when it comes to the environmental problems we face, if other countries “are not the ones whose economies have contributed most to it? And how collaborative are they going to be with us, and how friendly are they going to be with us?”

And who, in that scenario, pays the bill to restore or replace lost ecological services like the ones provided by wetlands? They alone are worth 70 billion to the global economy. Wetlands even employ – directly or indirectly – a billion people worldwide and are responsible for water generation, filtration, carbon storage, food security and ecosystem management. 

When we lose free ecological services, like wetlands, we need to replace them – for the sake of our security, our economy and our ability to actually live. And to replace ecological services? We’re talking an unbelievable amount of money. Maybe like the kind of money the resource sector helps contribute to the economy – or maybe much, much more.

Which brings us full circle. 

What to do? Where to start? What to prioritize? Nature to help people and the economy or the economy and people to help nature? It’s a difficult question, made all the more challenging by the fact this very question is dividing our democracy.