Liberals sacrifice rural salmon-farm jobs to win over urban activists’ votes
Trudeau’s
new platform defies government’s own commitment to making decisions on
aquaculture based on science and ignores the facts to mandate an unworkable
solution to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist.
Commentary
By John Paul Fraser
The Liberal Party of Canada appears ready
to sacrifice the livelihoods of thousands of British Columbians living in small
coastal B.C. communities on the altar of gaining urban votes in this month’s
election.
Buried in the federal Liberal election
platform is a pledge to transition salmon farming in B.C. out of the oceans and
into closed containment systems by 2025 — presumably on land.
If implemented, this platform will be
destructive, potentially costing thousands of British Columbians their jobs,
setting back reconciliation with First Nations, and harming the very wild
salmon it claims to be protecting. It ignores the facts to mandate an
unworkable solution to solve a problem that doesn’t actually exist.
The platform runs directly contrary to the
comments made by the Liberals’ own candidate in the riding that includes
Campbell River, the heart of B.C.’s salmon farming industry.
Liberal candidate Peter Schwarzhoff has
stated, in part: “{The) Industry has continuously improved their systems with
new technologies, (which) are constantly being deployed. DFO is satisfied that
the risk of these operations is minimal to wild salmon. But they remain
vigilant. Sustainable aquaculture is important to our communities and it is
being done safely.”
Trudeau’s new platform is not just at odds
with what local Liberals are saying, but flies in the face of extensive science
that tells us that, done responsibly, salmon farming does not have a negative
impact on wild salmon populations.
It defies the government’s own commitment
to making decisions on aquaculture based on science.
It flies in the face of a collaborative
process the same government’s Fisheries and Oceans minister set up earlier this
year, pulling together a broad, multi-stakeholder working group to look at how
new technologies can be deployed to make the industry even more sustainable.
It ignores the reality that our farms
already produce more than three-quarters of the salmon harvested in B.C. each
year, reducing pressure on wild stocks by providing a sustainably raised
alternative to eating endangered wild salmon.
The fact is, there just are not enough wild
salmon in the oceans to meet human demand, so if we want to continue eating
salmon we must responsibly farm it.
It sounds easy to say we’ll just move the
farms to land and that will take care of it, but the simple fact is that
land-based closed-containment salmon farming has not yet been successfully done
anywhere in the world.
The technology just isn’t there yet, though
promising R&D continues. Rather, the current trend is developing hybrid
systems where young fish spend a longer time in land-based hatcheries before
moving to the ocean pens, reducing the use of ocean-based farms. B.C.’s salmon
farmers are on the leading edge of that work.
It ignores the fact ocean-based salmon
farming has a very low carbon footprint, much lower than land-based
aquaculture, which burns through a lot of electricity to replicate natural
ocean currents. That puts the lie to Trudeau’s stated commitment to action on
climate change.
By demanding 100 per cent closed
containment in just six years, the Liberals are in effect calling on us to shut
down successful, responsible farming operations already innovating new ways of
doing things in favour of an alternative that doesn’t actually exist.
They are also ignoring the fact that most
salmon produced in B.C. is done in partnership with a First Nation, and that we
provide numerous training and employment opportunities in rural coastal First Nations
where logging and commercial fishing jobs don’t exist anymore.
That makes Trudeau’s talk about
reconciliation ring hollow. Our industry is reconciliation in action.
The Liberals’ platform ignores all those
inconvenient truths, apparently based on the hope this transition will just
somehow happen, with no thought given to the devastation it would wreak.
Salmon farming supports 7,000 middle-class
jobs in B.C. Farmed salmon is B.C.’s highest-valued seafood product and top
agricultural export, contributing $1.5 billion to B.C.’s economy every year.
The Liberals appear ready to toss all those
jobs and this important industry away in a short-sighted attempt to win votes
in urban B.C. ridings.
John Paul Fraser is the executive
director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association. This commentary was first
published in The Times Colonist. Facebook image of Campbell River Liberal
candidate Peter Schwarzhoff.