How Four Falsehoods Framed the BC Salmon Farming Debate in 2025

From sea lice claims to disease scare tactics, four activist narratives drove pressure on salmon farming in British Columbia in 2025, even as long-term science repeatedly contradicted them.

By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews

Throughout 2025, four recurring activist claims emerged as the dominant framework for opposing ocean salmon farming in British Columbia.

Each narrative appeared at key points in the year to boost waning support for the Trudeau-era proposed ban on ocean salmon farms in BC, a policy that has faced sustained criticism over its scientific basis and impacts on First Nations and coastal communities.

Over the course of the year, however, new peer-reviewed scientific studies, long-term monitoring data, and regulatory findings challenged each claim, exposing a widening gap between activist campaign messaging and evidence.

“No farms means no sea lice”

The opening narrative of 2025 rested on a simple claim. Remove open-net salmon farms and sea lice on wild salmon will disappear, activists argued. That assertion began to unravel early in the year with the release of long-term field data from the Broughton Archipelago, where salmon farms had already been largely phased out under agreements with local First Nations.

The data found that sea lice levels on wild juvenile salmon remained unchanged or increased even after farm removals. The findings directly challenged the “no farms means no sea lice” claim that activist groups have used for more than a decade to influence federal policy and public opinion.

Researchers analyzed nine years of data, examining nearly 3,000 juvenile pink and chum salmon sampled between 2016 and 2024. Over that period, aquaculture production in the Broughton fell by more than 95 percent. Despite the decline, sea lice prevalence spiked in 2022 while production was already in steep retreat and rose again in 2024, after most farms had been removed.

The Broughton findings mirrored earlier peer-reviewed research from the Discovery Islands, which examined eight years of sea lice monitoring and found that lice levels in 2024 were among the highest ever recorded, despite there being no active farms in the region since 2022.

Together, the studies reinforced conclusions from a Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat review that found no statistical correlation between farmed salmon and sea lice levels on wild stocks.

By year’s end, the evidence had dismantled the core “no salmon farms means no sea lice” narrative driving activist campaigns.

“Farm closures caused strong salmon returns”

As 2025 progressed, strong pink and sockeye salmon returns in parts of British Columbia were increasingly cited as evidence that recent closures of ocean salmon farms had driven the rebound.

Mid-year analyses challenged that conclusion by placing B.C.’s returns in a wider geographic and ecological context. Pink salmon runs surged across the North Pacific in 2025, including in regions where salmon farms continue to operate. Large increases were recorded in Alaska and Russia, while pink salmon abundance also expanded into the Atlantic, with established runs reported in Norway, the United Kingdom, and Newfoundland. The global distribution of these returns contradicted claims that localized farm closures on Canada’s west coast were the primary driver.

An August 2025 analysis of Fraser River sockeye linked the rebound to favourable ocean conditions and large-scale climate-driven cycles rather than changes in aquaculture activity along Vancouver Island. Ocean temperature shifts, food availability, and broader ecosystem dynamics were identified as dominant factors influencing survival and productivity.

Historical records further countered the activists’ farm-closure narrative. Since commercial salmon farming began in British Columbia in the late 1980s, odd-year Fraser River pink salmon returns have exceeded the average on multiple occasions. The largest returns on record, exceeding 20 million fish, occurred during periods when salmon farming activity was underway, including in 1991, 2001, 2003, 2009, and 2011.

The data by the end of the year strongly contradicted activist claims, showing the 2025 salmon surge was driven by global ocean conditions rather than by recent salmon farm closures in British Columbia.

“Farm pathogens are driving wild salmon collapse”

The claim that pathogens from open-net salmon farms were driving wild salmon toward collapse became another central pillar of activist rhetoric in 2025.

But a major peer-reviewed study that analyzed more than 20 years of scientific data on fish health in British Columbia and along the Pacific coast cut directly against that narrative.

Its conclusion was blunt. Marine net-pen salmon farms in B.C. have no more than a minimal impact on wild salmon populations and removing them would have no measurable effect on wild salmon productivity.

The researchers found no evidence linking farm-origin pathogens to population-level declines. Instead, they showed that many disease claims made by activists relied on theoretical risk rather than observed outcomes. One widely cited activist-authored dataset pointing to large sockeye losses was based on three positive tests out of more than 2,200 fish.

The study also revisited earlier activist-promoted research predicting a 99 percent collapse of pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago. Four generations later, pink salmon returns reached record highs. Other claims were found to exaggerate disease severity by mischaracterizing the original findings.

Across multiple regions, including the Fraser River, Clayoquot Sound, and the Broughton, wild salmon populations remained stable or increased during periods of active salmon farming. The study authors also pointed to more than two decades of mandatory health management, disease reporting, and independent audits in B.C. as key context often ignored in activist messaging.

At the end of 2025, the accumulated data left little room for the claim that farm pathogens were collapsing wild salmon, firmly dismantling the activists’ storylines.

“The science is being hidden”

As science continuously debunked activists’ claims in 2025, the focus of their social media campaigns shifted. This time, the argument was not about sea lice, salmon returns, or disease. It was about trust.

Activists increasingly alleged that federal regulators and government scientists were concealing information to protect the salmon farming industry. Claims circulated that key studies were being suppressed, data withheld, and public servants pressured to downplay risks in defence of industry interests.

But those claims did not withstand scrutiny.

Reviews of federal court records, regulatory filings, access-to-information disclosures, and published science found that much of the material described as “hidden” was already publicly available. This included disease screening data, farm audit reports, environmental monitoring results, and peer-reviewed risk assessments that had been cited in regulatory decisions and legal proceedings for years.

Several investigations showed how selective excerpts were repeatedly recycled on social media, stripped of context and presented as new evidence.

In some cases, allegations of suppression were tied to studies that had already been published, peer-reviewed, and openly debated within the scientific community.

Other reporting highlighted how the narrative of concealment expanded beyond Fisheries and Oceans Canada to include independent scientists, veterinarians, and advisory panels whose findings contradicted activist messaging. Rather than engaging with those conclusions, critics questioned the integrity of the process itself.

As empirical claims around sea lice, salmon abundance, and disease weakened under data review, conspiracy framing became more prominent. The shift reframed disagreement as misconduct and portrayed regulatory transparency as evidence of collusion.

Last year’s record showed that the “hidden science” narrative relied on repeated assertions of mistrust, even as the underlying information remained accessible through public channels.

Looking ahead to 2026

As Canada enters 2026, the salmon farming debate is no longer short on data. What 2025 showed is that many of the claims used to generate public pressure against the sector did not withstand scrutiny when tested against peer-reviewed science and long-term monitoring.

For Prime Minister Mark Carney, the issue now is not evidence, but application.

With federal decisions on salmon farming in British Columbia still pending, his government faces a test of whether it will continue his predecessor’s approach of courting activist support, or recalibrate policy around verified data, Indigenous agreements, and measured risk assessment.

The direction chosen will signal whether Canada’s aquaculture policy is anchored in evidence or continues to be shaped by activist rhetoric.

Main image courtesy of Mowi Canada West