Salmon Aquaculture Transition Plan

Can kicked even farther down the road 

Any time the government releases something late on a Friday afternoon, we prepare for disappointment. The draft Salmon Aquaculture Transition Plan, finally released on the afternoon of September 20, lived up to expectations in that regard. Simply put, it’s long on good intentions, long on timelines and very, very short on deliverables for the protection of wild salmon. 

On the positive side, we are pleased to see a whole-of-government response to transition planning that will be led, not by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but by the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Industry. This was a key recommendation put forward by Living Oceans and colleagues during the years of consultation that preceded this draft. 

Also positive: collaboration with Provincial, local and First Nations governments is stressed throughout. A customized approach that deals individually with each of the few First Nations communities that currently derive benefits from the salmon aquaculture industry also sounds good—provided those communities can come together to make the views of the majority of their members known; and provided that the rights of all Nations that depend on wild salmon throughout the Province are also accommodated. 

Of more concern is the language throughout the Plan that speaks to B.C. becoming a ‘world leader in sustainable salmon aquaculture’ through the adoption of new, clean technology. This is concerning because there isn’t any new, clean technology that protects wild salmon from salmon farm sewage, pathogens and parasites. The Plan references ocean-based “closed containment” salmon farms—newspeak for semi-closed systems that continue to pollute and require open-net pens to grow salmon to market size. The door has been left wide open for industry to continue to impact wild salmon ecosystems; and worse, to do it with taxpayer supports for investment in whatever ‘new technology’ they might choose. 

With industry already protesting that it is impossible to transition by 2029, when the government proposes to ban open-net pens, this Plan envisages a decade-plus timeline for supporting community economic development. Some of that support may go to enterprises other than salmon farming, if First Nations or other communities ask for it; but the focus of the Plan is clearly on promoting salmon aquaculture. It’s not hard to see this can being kicked even farther down the road. 

And for wild salmon? Two more years of management under the wholly inadequate Conditions of Licence announced in June, before those Conditions will be reviewed in 2026. 

The promise to enshrine the 2029 ban in regulation will take 18 to 24 months to accomplish, according to the Task Force appointed to oversee the Transition. We may well be going into the next federal election with nothing actually accomplished beyond an assurance that a Liberal government will, in 2029, if they’re still around to do it, ban open-net pens salmon farms.