CKNW Editorial
for July 23, 2001

We are going to be doing a great deal on fish farms in the weeks to come. It is a subject I feel very strongly on and I am not deterred by the apparent desire of both senior governments to have more and more of them.

Let me simply start with a common sense analogy. Supposing the delicacy of the year was the African Hyena so we brought them to Canada and kept them in corrals to be fattened and killed for the delicate palates of the world’s ravenous diners. We would be told, of course, that these hyenas would never be permitted to escape and if they somehow did, they would not survive in the wild and if they did survive a release from captivity they would never breed and take the place of domestic animals in the wild and in the food chain. Suppose we were nuts enough to allow a couple of hyena farms and suppose hyenas did break loose, and suppose they did survive in the wild and suppose they did indeed start to breed and replace local wildlife animals – would we be so stupid as to not only permit more hyena farms but actually encourage them? Would we do so even if the hyena farms made loads of money for the owners and provided so low paying jobs? Would we, indeed, do so under any conditions. Because Hyenas are visible and would be seen by people all over the province and because we would be able to witness with our own eyes what damage was being done we citizens would rise as one and insist that not only no hyena farms be permitted but that existing ones be destroyed and that a bounty be placed on hyenas that had made it into our wilds.

The farming of Atlantic salmon is the hyena of our oceans. The farmer uses the Atlantic salmon because it grows much faster than its Pacific cousin – it does in two years what it takes Pacific salmon four years to do. It doesn’t do this all on its own of course – it’s helped along by special foods, extracted, in part from other creatures of the ocean raising its own ecological questions and partly from mammals … which also should give us pause for thought.

What is truly astonishing is that there is experience with Atlantic salmon farming elsewhere in the world and the experience has been catastrophic. The reason BC is so popular is its sheltered harbours and tides to keep the water circulating at no cost to the farmer.

Here are some of the experiences elsewhere.

… disease causing the destruction of large salmon runs in Norway rivers, rivers that had to be poisoned in order to eradicate the disease. Ironically, the dominant players in our fish farming industry are Norwegians. Having screwed up their own waters, the Norwegians are now bent on doing the same here.

… huge salmon escapements giving rise to interbreeding with native stocks badly depleting the gene stock of the latter.

… the creation of huge concentrations of sea lice which, in the case of western Ireland, have wiped out the sea trout population, the sea trout being the European equivalent of our steelhead.

… the production of a medically unsound product according to scientists at the University of Surrey. The product contains four times as much fats and four time the concentration of dioxins.

Have all these things happened here? The answer is yes and the only argument is how bad it is. Though the question of disease is open to some debate as to degree, there is no debate on the matter of escapement. We now not only have had huge escapements, and not only have the fish survived, they have, contrary to all the solemn vows of the farmers and their handmaidens in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, spawned in our rivers and are supplanting our native stocks that have fallen so badly over the years. What is so especially baffling is that there is apparently no penalty imposed for these massive escapes.

We now have recorded infestations of sea lice, about which we will hear more this morning. This was so predictable yet was originally denied as a problem by the farmers … it is now admitted but said to be not all that serious.

The question of the product itself is open to serious question. So far, Health and Welfare Canada, bowing one has to presume to Agriculture Canada and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, has taken no interest in the matter. But if the experience in Europe is repeated here – and why shouldn’t it, these farms are producing a most unhealthy food item.

What is to be done?

First off I propose a boycott of farmed Atlantic salmon. This shouldn’t be too much of a sacrifice. Wendy and I simply ask at restaurants if their salmon is farmed and if it is, we have halibut or shellfish.

Second, I suggest that all interest groups – the David Suzuki Foundation, the Save Our Fish Foundation, the Steelhead Society, the Haig-Brown Flyfishers, the Totem Flysfishers, the Osprey Flyfishers, the guides organizations, Trout Unlimited and the so many other worthy organizations dedicated to the salvation of our seven Pacific salmon coordinate their efforts on this matter. They should set up a task force mandated to inform the public – a public that has been strangely silent on this disastrous invasion of our waters – and lobbying both governments.

What if we don’t do anything?

We will see a hugely serious impact on our already beleaguered pacific salmon and indeed might see it all but wiped out in many parts of BC. We will see British Columbia replacing its high quality food export with an inferior and perhaps even unhealthy substitute.

The argument is money and jobs. The jobs are not that many and are low paying. But as I have been at pains to point out in the past – the battle must also be fought on the ethical and moral battlefield. Are we, as British Columbians, prepared to see mostly foreign and out of province money bring to our province the means by which our Pacific salmon are wiped out?

The hour is very late indeed. It may even be that legal action must be taken to stop this filth spreading piracy of our waters.

But we must fight back – all of us.