ADMINISTRATION 237 



Organization Within the Region 



The Pacific region, has experienced a long histon,- of 

 oscillation between centralization and decentralization. 



Until the 1950s, most administration was in the hands 

 of three district offices with a small coordinating group in 

 the Vancouver headquarters. Then a process of central- 

 ization began in Vancouver as professional biologists, 

 engineers and economists were recruited to deal with 

 proliferating technical problems. In 1970 this trend was 

 reversed by formal decentralization of fisheries manage- 

 ment responsibilities into two offices, one for the north 

 and another for the south. A renewed drift toward cen- 

 tralization followed, but today the trend is again in the 

 direction of decentralization, especially with respect to 

 fisheries management and habitat protection. In addition 

 to the north area office based in Prince Rupert and the 

 south area office in Nanaimo, a third area office in New 

 Westminster is responsible for the Fraser River and 

 northern rivers flowing through the Alaskan panhandle 

 and the Yukon Territory. The headquarters office in Van- 

 couver is responsible for offshore fisheries. 



The three area managers are not responsible for all 

 activities in their geographic areas. They manage salmon, 

 herring and shellfish, but groundfish and offshore fisher- 

 ies are managed from Vancouver. Habitat management is 

 being decentralized apart from a small group of special- 

 ists to be retained in Vancouver. The Salmonid Enhance- 

 ment Program (apart from the geographic working 

 groups) is managed mainly from Vancouver headquar- 

 ters, as are research, support services, information ser- 

 vices, small craft harbours and international matters. 



In retrospect, the frequent organizational changes of 

 recent years appear to have been ad hoc, with insufficient 

 attention to their impacts on the Department as a whole. 

 Examples in addition to those noted above are the sepa- 

 rate structure for the Salmonid Enhancement Program, 

 moving the Assistant Deputy Minister from Ottawa to 

 Vancouver, and the shifting of research responsibilities 

 back and forth between the Fisheries Research Branch 

 and other branches. 



1 am loath to recommend any major reorganization of 

 responsibilities within the region at this time for three 

 reasons. One is that the Department's personnel are 

 weary of continuous reorganization, and have spent so 

 much energy in the process that I consider it important to 

 minimize dislocative changes, especially in view of all the 

 other policy changes I have proposed. The second is that 

 a gradual decentralization of responsibilities to area 

 offices is now taking place, and this trend appears to be in 

 the right direction. The third is that changes in Depart- 

 mental organization should be considered in the context 

 of a complete budget and efficiency review, which I rec- 

 ommend below. 



Rather than major organizational changes, the empha- 

 sis, for the time being, should be on strengthening the 

 Department's capabilities, re-aligning priorities, stream- 

 lining procedures, improving the qualifications of person- 

 nel, building up weak services, and improving informa- 

 tion and plarming. 



Notwithstanding my reluctance to recommend re- 

 organization, I believe a few changes are urgent and can 

 be made without causing disruption. One is the appoint- 

 ment of a senior officer to assist the Director General. 

 Clearly, the Director General now carries too many 

 responsibilities single-handedly. This is partly illustrated 

 in Figure 19-1, which shows the wide range of functions 

 he must attend to. In addition, he must cope with the 

 heavy external demands of representations from fisher- 

 men, processors, the provincial government and his supe- 

 riors in Ottawa. Even with extraordinary energy, these 

 pressures leave little time to attend to internal operations, 

 budgeting, staffing and administration. I therefore recom- 

 mend that — 



3. An Associate Director General should be appointed to 

 assist the Director GeneraJ of the region, especially in 

 respect of internal operations and administration. 



This proposal is consistent with the findings of a recent 

 review of the Support Services Branch, which noted the 

 exceedingly heavy and diverse demands on the Director 

 General.'- 



Some recommendations in other chapters have 

 significant implications for administrative organization. 

 They include those relating to the further strengthening 

 and decentralizing of habitat management personnel 

 (Chapter 3); transferring responsibility for the pollution 

 control provisions of the Fisheries Act from the Depart- 

 ment of Environment to the Department of Fisheries and 

 Oceans (Chapters 3 and 18): improving licensing admin- 

 istration (Chapter 8); strengthening enforcement capabil- 

 ities (Chapter 16); and improving consultative arrange- 

 ments (Chapter 17). 



Financial and Administrative Review 



The administrative organization and support for the 

 Department needs to be critically reviewed on a national 

 basis and with attention to organizational detail. Such a 

 review calls for a different kind of investigation from that 

 undertaken by this Commission, one like the Zero A- 

 Base Budget Review of all programs in Enviroimient 

 Canada initiated in 1977, when fisheries was the responsi- 

 bility of that department. That review set out to assess 

 priorities, to identify inefficiencies and duplication of 

 functions, and to evaluate expenditures in terms of their 

 benefits. It was deferred for the Pacific region because of 

 a reorganization taking place there at the time; and when 

 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was created, the 



