Well, heck, we didn't even know they surfed up in Canada, but we contacted Cam from the cool website surfingvancouverisland.com, and here's what he had to say:

Perfect and crisp breaks for days on end are a rarity around here, simply because we are in the generator. Good surfable swell takes time and distance to fall into order and waves jack up way more when you have deepwater right up to the reef you want to surf. The La Peruse Bank is pretty shallow and runs for 30 to 50 km offshore Vancouver Island.

Even though our buoys register waves of 100 feet on occasion [usually just before they break] those swells are in the middle of the storms and are unsurfable on any break I've seen around here. We surf mostly storm swell after the lows pass over us. Most often we surf 9 to 13 second period swells. Groundswells, especially of 18 to 22 seconds or more are very rare here.

One of the biggest impediments to big time surf comps is venue. The area with the best swell window and road access is the Tofino - Ucluelet area. There are just the two town sites and a National Park in between. The Park will not allow comps with the potential of large crowds or with more than 40 competitors citing environmental concerns. The Park also has a policy that doesn't allow any usage of the park that will impair the public's access or the pristine view [i.e.: no event banners or sponsor booths].

[It's funny, but whenever they shoot movies in the park, they always seem to have wardens steering the general public away from the movie set because there are bears in the vicinity. I've concluded that the black bears in Pacific Rim National Park are all movie buffs.]

Also, the town of Tofino is full up. They host the brunt of the 1.5 million park visitors every year and my guess is that they simply have less interest in surfers than in Barney and Betty Rubble because surfers spend less per day visit than the Rubbles do. To their credit, Tofino has put up with some serious shortcomings of our annual Surfjams [like 500 people crapping in the woods one year] and continue to issue event permits for our comps.

If there was a suitable venue, that whole area is a two-hour drive on a two-lane paved but very ugly, up, down and around the mountains, highway. The island has half a million people on it, but nearly all of them live at least that two hrs drive away. Most spectators would have to cross to the island on a ferry from Vancouver and I just don't see Tofino ever generating a California size surf comp crowd.

Surf comps are driven by business and I'm not sure it makes sense to hold a world-class comp in such a remote place. If they could justify the expense by just producing video and didn't need thousands of spectators, I don't think they'd ever waste their time on the Tofino beaches and would fly or boat into the really remote points and reefs for some spectacular footage [See Jeremy Koreski's NUMB and the "in production" SHRINK].