Why B.C.’s Salmon Farming Sector Is Worth Fighting For

Their voices are important because they are not only defending the past. They are also building the future.

Commentary
by Samantha McLeod
SeaWestNews

As Mowi reshapes its Canadian business, it would be easy to look at British Columbia’s salmon farming sector through a pessimistic lens of disquiet. But that would miss the far more important story.

B.C. salmon farming is about people. It is about food. It is about coastal communities, First Nations partnerships, young professionals, science, stewardship and the right to build a future in one of the most important food-producing sectors in this country.

Mowi’s decision to sell its Atlantic Canada salmon farming operations to Cooke Inc. has naturally raised questions about what comes next for its B.C. business. Mowi Canada West remains under strategic review, and there is no avoiding the pressure created by Ottawa’s plan to end conventional ocean salmon farming in British Columbia by June 30, 2029. That uncertainty is real, but so is the breathing-reality of everything else that has been built here.

Mowi Canada West still employs more than 300 people in British Columbia. Its operations produce about 20,000 tonnes of salmon annually and include hatcheries, ocean farms and processing infrastructure connected to Vancouver Island and the central coast.

These are not abstract numbers, in fact far from it. These numbers are tied to paycheques, mortgages, grocery bills, school supplies, small businesses, suppliers, truck drivers, technicians, biologists, processors, fish health teams and families who have made coastal B.C. their home.

The broader B.C. salmon farming sector supports thousands of full-time jobs and generates more than $1 billion in annual economic activity. Every remaining salmon farm in the province operates under an agreement with the First Nation in whose territory it is located. It is mind boggling how many news outlet downplay that most important fact.

For many coastal and Indigenous communities, salmon farming is not simply an industry sitting offshore. It is part of local economic planning, training, employment, business development and self-determination. In places where opportunity can be limited and expensive to sustain, these partnerships have helped keep people working close to home.

There is a new generation stepping forward in this sector, and they deserve to be heard. People like Kaitlin Guitard, new chair of Young Salmon Farmers of B.C., and the 2026 recipients of the Young Professionals award, Amanda Luxton and Kirstyn Hallberg.

Young Salmon Farmers of B.C. are not speaking from a distance. They are farm workers, hatchery staff, veterinarians, fish health specialists, food safety professionals, communicators, logistics workers, environmental technicians and managers. They are the people learning the systems, caring for the fish, answering hard questions and imagining what responsible aquaculture can become.

Their voices are important because they are not only defending the past. They are also building the future.

That future should include innovation. It should include better technology. It should include strong science, transparent regulation, wild salmon protection, Indigenous rights, food safety and public trust. No serious person in this sector should be afraid of improvement. And these young people are not afraid; they are leading the way in this sector.

Canada cannot talk about food security, reconciliation, rural economic development and young workers, while allowing one of its most valuable food-producing sectors to be pushed toward collapse by political uncertainty.

There is only one question that needs to asked. What would British Columbia lose if companies, workers and First Nations partners are not given a reason to stay?

We would lose food grown here at home. We would lose skilled coastal jobs. We would lose investment in remote communities. We would lose young people who want to farm the ocean responsibly. We would lose the chance to show that aquaculture and agriculture belong in the same conversation about Canada’s food future.

B.C.’s salmon farmers have been asked, again and again, to prove their value.

They have done that through work. Through science. Through regulation. Through partnerships. Through the simple, steady act of growing food in difficult conditions while facing years of uncertainty.

That is why this sector is worth fighting for.

Because it is full of people who are building a food legacy that will, ironically, feed the world.

Main image: Young Salmon Farmers of B.C.