Aquaculture: Greenwashing rules should apply equally to eco-activists

Canada’s new greenwashing regulations should ensure that both corporations and environmental activist groups are held to the same truth-in-advertising standards.

Commentary By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews

Canada’s recent efforts to address “greenwashing”— misleading claims about environmental benefits— are a necessary evolution in consumer protection and corporate responsibility. Especially when it comes to aquaculture.

The Federal Competition Bureau is currently seeking public feedback to amendments to the Competition Act with a focus on industry, to ensure corporations cannot falsely portray their products or practices as environmentally friendly.

What is equally important but ignored is the application of the proposed standards to environmental activist groups to ensure their claims meet the same level of scrutiny.

These groups play a critical role in shaping public perception and influencing policy but there is no mechanism, like the one being proposed for industry, to hold them accountable for their exaggerated claims and social media campaigns that spread falsehoods.

The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP) which represents the country’s oil and gas companies recently called on the Competition Bureau to ensure environmental groups are held to the same truth-in-advertising standards as other sectors under the new federal greenwashing rules.

Lending support to this call are Canadian seafood farmers.

“While the private sector is legally held to very high standards for truth-telling, environmental organizations are not. We frequently see outright lies and most certainly mistruths propagated widely with no accountability or legal repercussions,” said Timothy Kennedy, President and CEO of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA).

“What we have experienced in British Columbia with the salmon farming sector is the epitome of this. Seed-funded with tens of millions of dollars from massive US foundations two decades ago, the radical activist environmental community in BC has become a many-headed hydra that is seeking to end all resource-based economic activity,” Kennedy told SeaWestNews.

“Such an imbalance will destroy Canada unless we move to correct it. We need balance so that there is accountability with environmentalists and other activist NGOs to check their misinformation.”

In the context of activism against salmon farming in British Columbia (BC), the NGO groups have leveraged alarmist tactics, spreading claims that aren’t backed by credible science.

They argue that open-net salmon farming endangers wild salmon populations, yet multiple peer-reviewed studies by Canadian fisheries scientists’ state otherwise.

Currently the activists are using the world-wide abundance of Pink Salmon to push false narratives that the high returns – also recorded in British Columbia – are due to closures of some open-net aquaculture operations on Canada’s west coast.

Cherry-picking data to confuse the public and hog the headlines, the activists hide the fact that Pink Salmon runs are booming everywhere regardless of whether salmon farms are active or not.

Earlier this year, the activists were forced to remove radio ads and billboards carrying similar falsehoods about the salmon farmers.

Despite a well-documented list of inaccuracies and false statements about the sector, the Liberal government has yielded to the demands of anti-fish farming activists in return for their support in the polls.

Last June, the Liberal government, announced a ban on open-net salmon farming in British Columbia after 2029 – a move which will have far-reaching negative consequences for Canada’s economy, coastal communities, and First Nations.

The argument that environmental groups should be exempt from the new Greenwashing Standards, simply because their cause is supposedly just, is shortsighted.

A cause being important does not excuse the use of false information. In fact, it should demand even higher standards of truthfulness.

If these activist campaigns rely on misleading information—whether about the severity of a problem or the effectiveness of a solution—it’s a form of greenwashing.

Just as a corporation could face penalties for falsely advertising a product as “eco-friendly,” an environmental activist group that exaggerates the impact of a crisis or a proposed remedy should be held accountable.

Canada’s new greenwashing regulations should ensure that everyone in the environmental conversation is held to the same standard of honesty.

By doing so, we can foster a more informed public and a more effective movement toward sustainability.

Just like industries must substantiate their environmental claims, activist groups must also be held accountable for the information they disseminate, ensuring the public and policymakers are basing decisions on sound science rather than alarmism.

This accountability will lead to more balanced, effective, and sustainable environmental solutions for BC’s salmon farming industry and beyond.

(Image shows some of the 200 people involved in British Columbia’s aquaculture sector at a rally in downtown Nanaimo last week)