Canada Needs To Recognise Aquaculture as a National Advantage, Not a Controversy

“We have the natural assets to lead in aquaculture, but if we don’t act with urgency, we will simply miss the opportunity” – Canada’s Ocean Supercluster CEO, Kendra MacDonald

By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews

The head of Canada’s Ocean Supercluster  , a federally backed innovation network driving growth in the Blue Economy, is calling on Ottawa to stop treating marine aquaculture as a controversy and start recognising it as a national advantage.

Warning that political hesitation and misinformation are holding back one of the country’s greatest economic and food security opportunities, the agency’s CEO, Kendra MacDonald, said Canada is risking a multi-billion-dollar ocean farming opportunity.

“We have the natural assets to lead in aquaculture, but if we don’t act with urgency, we will simply miss the opportunity,” said MacDonald, in an interview with SeaWestNews, after speaking at the recent Food Leadership Summit in Calgary.

“We don’t have a clear government champion for the growth of the aquaculture sector. The Department of Fisheries… their role is very much on the regulatory side. But we need to have a federal champion for the growth of the sector,” she said.

“Aquaculture is a greater source now of fish than wild fishery and that will continue to grow…It is the most sustainable source of meat or animal protein but that story is not necessarily well understood across Canada.”

MacDonald’s caution comes as anti-fish farming activists keep pressuring Federal Fisheries Minister Joanne Thompson to implement her predecessors’ mandate to phase out ocean salmon farming in BC by 2029.

This policy directly contradicts repeated findings from the government’s own scientists and other fisheries experts whose peer-reviewed studies have concluded that ocean salmon farms in BC pose less than a minimal risk to migrating wild salmon stocks.

Activist groups also continue to insist that BC move all salmon production to land-based tanks, a position widely dismissed by coastal Nations, scientists, and economists as unrealistic and deeply harmful to local communities. Multiple independent and government studies have shown that large-scale land-based salmon farming would require vast amounts of freshwater, energy, and urban land, raising red flags over food security, market reach and the future of Indigenous and rural livelihoods.

MacDonald echoed these concerns, warning that such proposals ignore the geographical realities of BC’s remote coastline.

“These remote, small communities… the business case for being on land is not there. It’s hard to reach, its nature based. If you lose the ocean advantage, you lose the advantage entirely,” she said.

She noted that while innovation in salmon farming is often portrayed as a switch to land-based systems, the real innovation is already happening in the ocean through precision feeding, AI-driven monitoring, and First Nations stewardship protocols that reduce impacts and strengthen cultural oversight.

“But we still need to be able to tell the story of what these innovations mean to local communities… to First Nations’ economic reconciliation efforts and the opportunities that the sector creates.”

Minister Thompson agreed with MacDonald’s assertions that Canada can become a global leader in the next generation of aquaculture production at last week’s briefing to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans in the House of Commons.

Thompson reiterated that she is awaiting a report from ISED (Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada) before determining the future of the BC salmon farming sector, which supports 4,500 full-time jobs, contributes over $1.17 billion annually to B.C.’s economy, and is the province’s most valuable agri-food export.

The damage caused by the proposed ban would strike hardest at Indigenous communities.

Over 1,000 Indigenous workers and dozens of Rights Holder Nations who are partners in every BC salmon farm stand to lose $134 million in annual benefits and decades of progress toward economic self-determination.

It is within these First Nations and coastal communities on Vancouver Island, MacDonald said, that   the real story of salmon aquaculture is being overlooked.

“The voices of those most directly affected…coastal and remote Indigenous communities are largely absent from the national debate… if you ask the average Canadian what the impact of salmon aquaculture is on a remote Indigenous community in BC is, they’re just not paying attention.”

MacDonald believes that decisions in Ottawa on aquaculture are increasingly detached from realities on the coast, where ocean farming is not an abstract policy issue but a lifeline, sustaining families and future generations.

“These are stories that can tug at the hearts and minds of all Canadians, but they are not being heard… I don’t think most people really realize what the opportunity is, or the impact it’s having in communities.”

As BC salmon farmers and their First Nations partners await Minister Thompson’s decision, industry leaders, scientists, and business leaders across the country are urging Ottawa to rethink its plan to ban ocean salmon farms in BC within four years.

Brian Kingzett, Executive Director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA), said with supportive legislation and science-based policies, the sector could double its output by 2030, reaching $2.5 billion in annual economic activity, contributing $930 million to GDP, and creating 9,000 jobs with $560 million in wages.

Main File Image shows Canada’s Ocean Supercluster CEO, Kendra MacDonald