Pragmatic middle ground needed on fish farms
The decision on whether to renew salmon farming licences on the West Coast that will come before the federal cabinet on Tuesday is a microcosm of the struggle between the environment and the economy that has bedevilled the Liberal government ever since it promised to balance these competing interests in 2015. The predicament facing the Ehattesaht First Nation on Vancouver Island’s West Coast is its compelling symbol: The band has hanging in the balance a new $300-million salmon-farming opportunity that could help it out of deepening economic and social hopelessness, but it could all be scuppered by environmentally activist ministers.
On the one side of the cabinet table, there are the pragmatists, like Fisheries Minister Diane Lebouthillier, who want to use technology to gradually transition the industry to a place where contact between wild and farmed salmon is minimal but, crucially, are looking to renew existing operating licences for another eight years or so.
On the other side, there are the activist environmentalists who want the industry shut down, regardless of the economic costs, over fears that sea lice from open-net pens are infecting wild salmon stocks.
The pragmatists point out that the government’s own scientists say the pathogen transmission from the farmed Atlantic salmon represents a “minimal risk” to the Fraser River sockeye population, which faces bigger impacts from climate change and fishing pressures.
The activists say sea lice from farmed salmon absolutely poses a threat to the immune systems of juvenile wild fish. They call the government’s report flawed and based on selective analysis, with the only outside review coming from a scientist associated with the industry. The House fisheries committee said additional information that was ignored in the government’s report could have had a material impact on the study.
The entrenched positions on both sides means that it may fall to Justin Trudeau to arbitrate and make a decision.
The government’s scientific report may well be as flawed as its critics suggest.
But any politician has to go on the information that is before him or her — not what may or may not appear in subsequent years.
If the government’s scientific advisers say there is minimal risk, that has to be the government’s position.
What is beyond question is the material impact the decision will have on the lives of some of Canada’s most marginalized people.
Ernie Smith, the acting chief of the Ehattesaht First Nation, wrote to Trudeau on May 15. He said his community in Esperanza Inlet, around the village of Zeballos just north of Tofino, B.C. (a region with which the prime minister has a long affinity) has been salmon farming for five years and has signed a benefit agreement with Grieg Seafood of Norway.
This spring, it signed a memorandum of understanding with Grieg to take a 30-per-cent equity position in a $300 million post-smolt contained facility that would grow the salmon on land for a year before returning them to the water.
This is the kind of techbased solution that will help minimize contact between wild and farmed fish.
But that investment will only be made if all parties have confidence that they will have a long-term operating licence. Smith said Ehattesaht need a minimum of a 10-year licence renewal to justify the capital expenditure.
He said the government’s decision puts the opportunity to create economic prosperity in the community at risk.
“For as long as I remember, our community of Zeballos has been in decline. We no longer have a full-service hotel, a restaurant, a grocery store, gas station or a place to get a tire fixed. We are two-and-a-half hours — a quarter of which is on gravel roads — from the nearest hospital or other important services most Canadians take for granted. In February 2023, we declared a state of emergency to combat the toxic drug crisis that has landed in our community and taken too many of our youth,” he said. “It is the mandate of our council to change this decline, lift our people out of poverty, provide people with stability and rebuild our community.”
Smith said salmon aquaculture has “minimal to no effect” on wild salmon and his community is already monitoring water quality and using barrier technology to reduce interactions.
“Special interests do not live here and they do not know best about what we can do and cannot do in our territory. We strongly believe that the courts will agree with us,” he said.
Given Trudeau’s personal commitment not to impose colonial-style decision-making on Indigenous communities, it is hard to see how he could be unmoved by Smith’s appeal, particularly when it is backed by the veiled threat of legal action.
There is a well-funded environmentalist lobby to get the pens out of the water driven by Tony Allard, a B.C. businessman and head of two wild salmon advocacy groups.
It has won the support of many members of the Liberals’ B.C. caucus, which may or may not be related to the $78,609 in donations made by Allard and his family to the Liberal party and a number of local riding associations over the past decade, according to Elections Canada data.
But Smith’s letter makes clear that the people who live on the land know better than “a few misinformed activist business leaders and political leaders in downtown Vancouver.”
The winds have changed. People do not appear to be prepared to accept that environmental protection efforts can ignore economic impacts.
Indigenous leaders know that managing or owning resources is the only way out of poverty and the polls suggest voters are on their side.
Political parties that ignore the new pragmatism will simply be swept away.