Aquaculture in B.C. already delivers what Mark Carney’s new nature strategy promises

Ottawa’s plan to ban ocean salmon farming in British Columbia directly undercuts Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledge to link conservation, economic growth and partnership with First Nations.

Commentary
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews

Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new nature strategy says Canada can align environmental  protection with economic prosperity through partnerships across governments, sectors and Indigenous communities.

In his March 31 speech launching A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature, Carney said Canada must “build sustainably,” create “predictable pathways for project approvals,” and mobilize private capital by treating conservation as an investment opportunity.

In British Columbia’s rugged and remote central coast, aquaculture has already shown what that vision can look like in practice.

Here in the heart of the Great Bear Rainforest, the Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation has built a model in which salmon farming helps sustain jobs and community prosperity while Indigenous-led stewardship protects the surrounding marine environment.

Their Gitdisdzu Lugyeks Marine Protected Area in Kitasu Bay received a 2024 Blue Park Award, the first in Canada, recognizing a protected marine area managed through both traditional knowledge and modern science. The Marine Conservation Institute describes it as a permanent 33.5-square-kilometre protected area managed by the Kitasoo Xai’xais.

At the same time, the Nation has built a long-standing salmon farming economy in its territory, helping drive a 99 per cent employment rate in the community, with 51 per cent of jobs linked to aquaculture.

In a social media post this week, the Kitasoo Xai’xais said : “Our aquaculture sites are designed to exist in harmony with the Great Bear Rainforest, managed by our own people and held to the highest environmental standards in the world.”

“We aren’t just farming salmon; we are protecting a way of life that sustains our community and the ecosystem we all rely on.”

They are not alone. From Ahousaht to the Tlowitsis, and through the broader Coalition of First Nations for Finfish Stewardship, coastal First Nations are already showing that salmon farming, when shaped by Indigenous partnerships, can link economic development with stewardship in ways Ottawa claims it wants to champion.

That is what makes this nature speech by Carney so striking.

While Carney talks about partnerships with Indigenous communities, sustainable development and more predictable project approvals, Ottawa is still sitting on an activist-induced Trudeau-era plan to ban ocean salmon farming in coastal British Columbia by June 30, 2029.

Worse still, this proposed ban is without a solid scientific foundation. The evidence to date shows no measurable negative impacts from B.C. salmon farms on wild salmon populations.

Operating entirely through agreements with First Nations, salmon farming generates more than $1.17 billion a year for British Columbia’s economy and supports 4,560 full-time jobs. The broader footprint supports about 7,000 jobs in indigenous and coastal communities and contributes roughly $1.5 billion annually to the provincial economy.

If Carney kowtows to the activists, like his predecessor did, the burden on taxpayers could exceed $9 billion once compensation for fish farmers, suppliers and First Nations is combined with subsidies for still-unproven closed-containment alternatives.

The fallout would not stop there. The ban would force Canada to rely more heavily on imported farmed salmon from countries such as Chile and Norway, driving up emissions and pushing higher costs onto consumers.

The broader hit to British Columbia’s economy would be severe. The phaseout is projected to erase $435 million in GDP, along with roughly $259 million in annual payroll. More than 1,400 vendors across the province stand to lose a combined $437 million in yearly spending.

Indigenous communities would be among the hardest hit. The sector currently delivers about $134 million in annual economic benefits and supports employment for more than 1,000 Indigenous workers. A ban would not just weaken coastal economies. It would also undermine years of progress in Indigenous partnership, local development and reconciliation.

Carney  cannot talk about creating predictable pathways for investment while keeping one of British Columbia’s most important food-producing sectors trapped in years of political uncertainty. And it cannot claim to see nature as an asset while targeting an industry that, already operates alongside Indigenous-led stewardship and globally recognized marine protection.

If Carney wants this new nature strategy to be more than polished rhetoric, aquaculture, in particular, salmon farming in B.C., is a good place to prove it.

That means abandoning the phaseout mindset, listening to the First Nations already showing what works on the water, and creating a regulatory path that rewards stewardship, investment and Indigenous consent.  

Otherwise, Carney’s grand language about nature and prosperity will read less like a national strategy and more like a speech written in Ottawa that forgot to look West.

(Main image shows Prime Minister Mark Carney delivering his speech launching A Force of Nature: Canada’s Strategy to Protect Nature)