I've been doing some research on this and have consulted a couple of constitutional lawyers. In addition to the s. 35 rights many treaties exist that are in effect a contractual obligation that the government of Canada must consider. Resource rights under the
are restricted to non renewable resources (minerals, oil and gas etc) and forestry. There is nothing that gives citizens rights to natural resources and control over fisheries (oceans) is specifically given to the federal government. (and have been since 1867)
There is some question whether the actual fish (salmon) are a provincial resource vs a federal one. ( they are created on provincial land ) If there was a friendly provincial government there may be things a province could do to guarantee the rights to access resources (fish) through legislation. This would be a major source of conflict with the federal government and aboriginals and is unlikely to happen.
It is clear to me that the sports industry needs friends, and needs to rethink the strategy regarding requests to government. Partnership with aboriginal groups that could result making joint submissions to DFO and a broad range of MP's and Cabinet Ministers may be a path to success. I know there are many here that don't want to hear that, but this is the current reality of the situation. I acknowledge that there are some groups that can't be worked with, but there are undoubtedly some that would be amenable. I also know that this already occurs in some places in the province (somas sockeye)
If government is confident that a majority of stakeholders support decisions it's makes it easy to make proper and fair regulations.
Science rarely is the sole or most important factor government considers when decisions are made. Although logical based solely on the health of the resource, other groups can come up with various "scientific" reasons why the science they oppose is wrong. There needs to be more than one argument.
All of these efforts are multi year initiatives that will take time, effort and money. I am willing to donate my time and resources and admittedly limited knowledge but I really don't know where to start. I am sure there are many others like me. While there are many well intentioned groups, the larger and more coherent the organization larger voice it will have with government.