Seismic Political Shift Offers New Hope for B.C.’s Salmon Farmers

After almost a decade of NDP rule marked by indifference to salmon farming, the election of a Conservative majority signals a significant political shift in B.C., with the incoming government promising to support the sector and follow the science on aquaculture.

Analysis
By Fabian Dawson
SeaWestNews

For nine years, British Columbia’s NDP governments have either sided with activists campaigning to dismantle ocean salmon farming or remained largely indifferent as federal policies threatened one of the province’s most valuable food export sectors.

That political climate is now set to change following Saturday’s election of a Conservative majority government under Lorne Doerkson, whose party has explicitly promised to support science-based aquaculture and press Ottawa to recognize responsibly farmed seafood as an important part of B.C.’s food security.

Significantly, the BC Conservatives were the only major political party to specifically address aquaculture in their 2026 election platform, while neither the NDP nor the Greens offered comparable commitments despite the industry’s uncertain future under Ottawa’s plan to end conventional ocean salmon farming by June 30, 2029.

The scientific evidence the Conservatives have promised to follow is already substantial.

Nine federal peer-reviewed risk assessments have found that the marine operations, all of which operate under agreements with Rights Holder First Nations, pose no more than minimal risk to wild fish.

Decades of data compiled by a team of renowned fish pathology experts, concluded the same, showing the risk of disease transmission from farmed to wild salmon has been greatly exaggerated by activist groups, whose claims were echoed by the B.C. NDP.

For B.C.’s salmon farmers and First Nations partners, this election ends years of NDP reluctance to defend an industry generating $1.17 billion annually and supporting 4,560 full-time jobs, including more than 1,000 Indigenous workers.

Since taking office in 2017, successive NDP governments under John Horgan and David Eby have treated B.C.’s salmon farming sector as an awkward political file, managed through careful wording, selective acknowledgment and strategic silence.

The tensions surfaced early in the NDP’s first term when then-agriculture minister Lana Popham threatened Marine Harvest Canada, now Mowi, in 2017 that its operating tenures could be at risk as activists intensified their campaign against salmon farming in B.C.

Around the same time, Popham, announced a $100,000 government investigation into the scientific work of provincial fish pathologist Dr. Gary Marty, who challenged the activist claims that diseases associated with salmon farms posed significant risks to wild salmon.

That investigation  found no evidence of questionable data or conflicts of interest at the province’s Animal Health Centre, as claimed by activists aligned with Popham.

The episode illustrated how political pressure from opponents of salmon farming could spill into disputes over scientific research, even as the industry called for evidence-based environmental oversight.

Popham did not run in this election, and her former constituency of Saanich South went to Conservative Cathie Ounsted, who defeated NDP candidate Richard Zussman.

Under Eby, B.C. promoted seafood exports, while sidestepping Ottawa’s planned salmon farm shutdown to avoid alienating anti-fish farming activists and their supporters.

Meanwhile, Atlantic Canada’s provincial governments openly championed salmon farming as a source of jobs, exports and investment, a stark contrast to the B.C. NDP’s reluctance to defend the industry.

Even after the Business Council of British Columbia warned that Ottawa’s planned shutdown would devastate coastal communities, destroy jobs and drive away investment, the Eby government remained largely silent on the issue.

One of the more interesting election results for the sector came in Vancouver-Yaletown, where Conservative Margareta Dovgal defeated NDP incumbent Terry Yung.

Dovgal, who served as managing director of Resource Works, a Vancouver-based non-profit advocating for B.C.’s natural resource sector, has been a prominent supporter of sustainable salmon farming in partnership with First Nations.

Her victory gives B.C.’s natural resource industries a stronger political voice in Metro Vancouver, where environmental activists have cultivated considerable opposition to salmon farming, forestry and mining.

The result also highlights growing recognition of the economic ties between urban neighbourhoods and B.C.’s resource-dependent rural communities.

Perhaps the most direct connection between Saturday’s election and the future of salmon farming comes from North Island, the centre of B.C.’s salmon farming industry, which was won by Conservative Dr. Anna Kindy.

Kindy, a physician by training, has been among the provincial Conservatives’ most outspoken supporters of science-based salmon farming after visiting aquaculture operations and meeting the communities that depend on them.

“I’m a science-based person with a physician background, and I was shocked at how highly regulated fish farms were,” she told a B.C. Salmon Farmers Association annual meeting. “Since then, I’ve been 100 per cent on board.”

Her re-election, alongside federal Conservative MP Aaron Gunn’s representation of the region, gives salmon farming supporters in North Island political voices at both levels of government as pressure grows on Ottawa to reconsider its 2029 policy.

Over the past decade, B.C.’s salmon farming production has fallen by more than 40 per cent as farms closed and investment stalled, while Canada’s salmon imports exceeded $1 billion in 2025.

The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association and its First Nations partners have outlined a different future, projecting that a renewed, science-based approach to aquaculture could generate $2.5 billion in annual economic output and support 9,000 jobs by 2030, while protecting wild salmon through improved technology and farming practices.

In his victory speech last night, Doerkson promised to “supercharge” B.C.’s resource economy.

He can start by turning the blue wave that carried him to power into a thriving blue economy: one built with First Nations that keeps coastal communities working and B.C.’s sustainable salmon farms in the water.

(Main image shows Lorne Doerkson, premier elect of B.C.)