As Ottawa pledges reconciliation and prosperity in this week’s Throne Speech, the Kitasoo Xai’xais First Nation confronts a future without salmon farming – the very industry that saved their community.
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews
Canada’s aquaculture sector is like a rocket fully loaded and ready for liftoff. The trajectory is clear. The engines are primed. The mission aligns perfectly with national interests of sustainable growth, Indigenous prosperity, food security, and coastal jobs.
All it needs is the political will to get the sector soaring.
But instead of liftoff, we have a failure to launch.
And that failure is even more baffling considering how aligned everyone in Ottawa seems to be on the importance of this sector that employs over 17,550 Canadians, generating $5.3 billion in economic activity and $2 billion in GDP.
Canada’s 45th Parliament opened this week with King Charles III delivering the Throne Speech, laying out a sweeping agenda to protect nature, strengthen the economy, and advance reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples.
This stated focus on reconciliation, economic growth, and climate leadership provides a policy framework in which responsible aquaculture isn’t just compatible — it’s essential.
That message was reinforced by Prime Minister Mark Carney’s mandate letter to his cabinet ministers, where he laid out Canada’s “incredible opportunity… to think big and to act bigger.”
The mandate outlined a bold plan to build infrastructure “at speeds not seen in generations,” unlock productivity, and catalyze private investment to tackle affordability, climate change, and global trade uncertainty.
Even MPs from opposing sides are saying what industry leaders, and their Indigenous partners have been shouting for years.
Liberal MP Wayne Long, from Saint John–Kennebecasis, has openly criticized his own party for its decision to phase out open-net pen salmon farms in B.C. by 2029. He called the move “shameful” and questioned how policy decisions made in Ottawa by the Trudeau-era government could ignore its own experts and impose a blanket policy on Indigenous communities that support and rely on aquaculture.
“This industry absolutely checks every box that our government should be focused on,” Long said.
Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Conservative MP Aaron Gunn, newly elected in North Island–Powell River, has pledged to be a strong voice for the natural resource industries that drive coastal economies.
He’s promised an open-door approach to representing constituents who depend on aquaculture, forestry, and energy.
Given the policy signals and the political rhetoric, you could be forgiven for thinking aquaculture in Canada had finally reached orbit.
But the reality tells a different story.
This week, in a remote Indigenous village on the central coast of British Columbia, the people of the Kitasoo Xai’xais Nation gathered in worry, not celebration.
As politicians in Ottawa made soaring speeches about reconciliation, environmental leadership, and building a stronger economy, the Kitasoo Xai’xais contemplated a future without the very thing that has kept their community alive — salmon farming.
For over a generation, this Nation has done everything right, when it comes to aquaculture.
They partnered with industry. They embraced environmental protection. They achieved near-total employment. They turned away from an era of despair, when suicide, addiction, and hopelessness hung heavy in the air, to build something better. Something lasting. Something of their own.
“Without salmon farming,” said Isaiah Robinson, Deputy Chief Councillor, “our coastal communities will face generational trauma. Parents will lose their jobs. Youth will leave their territories. Families will lose their pride and hope for their future.”
He isn’t exaggerating. Since partnering with Mowi in the late 1980s, the Kitasoo Xai’xais went from 5% employment to nearly 100%. Half of those jobs are tied directly to aquaculture. Suicide, once tragically common, has vanished from the community for over 20 years. That’s not a statistic — that’s survival.
And still, their future hangs in limbo. Not because the aquaculture industry failed. Not because their stewardship faltered.
But because of policy decisions made in Ottawa by ministers more interested in appeasing urban activists than listening to the Indigenous voices on the water.
And it’s not just Kitasoo Xai’xais.
Across the province, 100% of British Columbia’s salmon farming production now operates in partnership with First Nations. These are not passive agreements. They are active, long-standing relationships rooted in consent, stewardship, science, and self-determination.
This week’s political pledges and pronouncements on Parliament Hill all pointed to the promise of aquaculture.
But so far, it’s First Nations and their aquaculture partners doing the work.
Ottawa? Still stuck recycling soundbites.
For aquaculture in Canada, this isn’t liftoff.
This is a failure to launch.
Main Image (seated l to r) Prime Minister Mark Carney, King Charles III and Queen Camilla in Canada’s Parliament.