The right to say no to salmon farming also includes the right to say yes. When First Nations choose to work with the aquaculture industry, that decision must be respected, the VIEA Summit heard.
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews
Canada is losing its competitive footing and weakening the economic foundations of its coastal and rural regions, said Ken Coates, one of the country’s foremost scholars on Indigenous economic development.
Speaking alongside Brian Kingzett, Executive Director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, during a panel at the Vancouver Island Economic Alliance (VIEA) Summit this week, Coates said aquaculture has become a critical economic pillar for many Indigenous and coastal communities yet remains trapped in what he called “government by activism” rather than science-based policy.
“We have communities up and down this coast that have struggled for decades. When they finally find something that brings stability, employment and dignity, the fear of losing it is profound,” Coates said. “These communities are terrified.”
Kingzett said Canada is falling behind peer aquaculture nations on productivity, regulatory clarity, and long-term planning. He pointed to Norway and the Faroe Islands, where salmon farming is recognized as essential food production, overseen through agriculture ministries, and integrated into community life and identity.
“In Norway, salmon farms are a normal part of the coastline,” Kingzett said. “In British Columbia we have built strong Indigenous partnerships, yet we still face uncertainty that stops innovation and investment.”
He noted that BC has world-leading veterinary oversight, mandatory vaccination programs, and some of the strictest sea lice controls in the sector. Federal science has determined that salmon farms pose minimal risk to wild salmon migration routes.
“We are seven years behind the innovation happening in Norway because capital walked away during Ottawa’s policy uncertainty,” said Kingzett.
Coates connected the current salmon farming debate to lessons from the 1999 Marshall decision, which affirmed commercial fishing rights for First Nations in Atlantic Canada. That ruling led to more than 1,000 Indigenous harvesters working on the water and significant revenue flowing back into Indigenous communities.
“What matters is community agency,” Coates said. “The right to say no also implies the right to say yes. When Nations choose to work with industry, that decision must be respected.”
In British Columbia today, every salmon farm operates in partnership with rights-holder First Nations. The sector generates over $1.17 billion annually for the provincial economy, supports 4,560 full-time jobs, and includes more than 500 Indigenous positions in remote coastal regions where other industries have declined.
Kingzett recalled sitting beside a First Nation chief in Ottawa who said: “We have not had a suicide in 18 years since we began this salmon farming partnership. We are not going back.”
That moment, the panel heard, captured the stakes better than any financial metric.
Coates warned that policy choices made in Victoria and Vancouver are increasingly disconnected from the realities of coastal life.
“Urban British Columbia does not see the coast anymore,” he said. “The people who rely on these industries are being asked to bear the economic cost of decisions influenced by distant rhetoric, not local knowledge.”
Coates, a University of Saskatchewan Professor Emeritus, has urged Prime Minister Mark Carney to make aquaculture part of a renewed nation-building effort. He said repealing the proposed 2029 ban on ocean salmon farms would allow BC salmon farming to stand as a symbol of economic reconciliation. If the ban is upheld, he warned, “this once progressive industry will come to symbolize government mismanagement and capitulation to special interests at the expense of remote First Nation communities.”
Both Coates and Kingzett said aquaculture policy must be grounded in science, not shifting political pressure. The sector needs long-term stability so companies and First Nations can invest, innovate, and plan for future generations. Indigenous governments must be recognized as full economic partners.
The Coalition for First Nations Finfish Stewardship, which represents the Indigenous governments that license, monitor, and manage salmon farming in their territories, has echoed the same call.
“Telling us to remove salmon farms from our territories is an attempt to override our rights, our governance, and our self-determination,” the Coalition stated. “These farms operate here because our Nations have granted that permission. Other groups do not speak for our territories, which we have stewarded since time immemorial.”
Meanwhile, economist Susan Mowbray told Summit delegates that Vancouver Island’s economic momentum is slowing. Private investment has weakened, and core goods-producing sectors are contracting. The region is increasingly dependent on publicly funded employment rather than industries that bring new revenue into communities. Aquaculture is one of the few sectors capable of reversing that trend.
BC’s salmon farmers and their First Nation partners say that if Ottawa repeals the 2029 phase-out and replaces it with a science-backed, Indigenous-led framework that provides regulatory certainty, the sector could generate $2.5 billion in economic output and support 9,000 jobs by 2030.
Main file image shows Ken Coates, a University of Saskatchewan public policy professor