NDP critic for Fisheries, Oceans and Canadian Coast Guard, MP Fin Donnelly, toured Vancouver Island in July advocating for wild salmon.
He introduced Bill C-228, which would amend the Fisheries Act by requiring B.C. salmon farms to move from open-net farms to closed containment systems.
“I believe after looking at this for almost 10 years as an elected official, that this is the best solution we have; to move these farms out of the ocean and onto land,” MP Donnelly said at a town hall event in Tofino on July 19.
“I think that’s the way forward. Get these farms out of the ocean. Lower their impact on wild salmon and still keep the jobs.”
It has been widely reported that wild salmon exposed to open-net fish farms are more likely to pick up infectious disease, such as sea lice and piscine reovirus (PRV). Research conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) shows that PRV was first detected on the West Coast of Canada in 2011 from farmed Chinook salmon.
Some studies suggest that PRV is associated with Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI), which weakens the salmon to a point where they can barely swim.
Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation councillor Joe Martin spoke at Thursday’s town hall event. Martin grew up in the village of Opitsaht on Meares Island near Tofino.
READ MORE: How four changes to the Fisheries Act may affect the North Coast
“I’ve been on the land all my life,” said the master canoe carver and tour operator. “One of the things I’ve really noticed on the inlets here, Fortune Channel and Gunner Inlet, all the places where the fish farms are now, is there is seaweed, which used to be all nice and clear and clean, now it’s covered with sledge. It’s from the fish farms. I’m sure it’s from them. Certainly, since the salmon farms have been in our waters, our wild stock have not been increasing.”
Recently, Washington state passed legislation to phase out open-net Atlantic salmon farms after an incident last summer saw tens of thousands of invasive Atlantic salmon escape into the Pacific Ocean. Donnelly thinks the time to move to new technology is now.
“You look at the whole Coast, Alaska doesn’t do it, Northern B.C. doesn’t do it, now Washington or Oregon, they don’t do it. The only place left that is doing open-net pen salmon farming is southern B.C. I think the days are numbered,” he said.
Norwegian farmed-salmon firm Atlantic Sapphire is building a massive land-based aquaculture facility in Florida, according to a press release on seafoodsource.com.
The first phase of the project, which will cost around $100 million USD, is expected to produce 22 million pounds of fish per year.
A new group called BC LandAqua Ventures Inc. is trying to develop a land-based aquaculture facility on Vancouver Island, north of Campbell River.
“That for me is the game changer. Now government has a decision to make. They either approve it or not,” said Donnelly, adding that BC LandAqua has already raised about half of the $20-$40 million in private sector capital they would need to make the large-scale, closed-containment salmon farm a go.
READ MORE: Young B.C. fishers instigate study on West Coast licence, quota system
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