An industry on borrowed time that wants to survive

(Campbell River, Port Hardy, Port McNeill, British Columbia) Smolts are sucked into a tube, anesthetized, and then mechanically administered two vaccines. At the end of the conveyor belt at the Big Tree Creek fish farming station, about fifty kilometers from Campbell River, Chris McNeill and an employee ensure that the injections have been correctly carried out.

We vaccinate between 80,000 and 100,000 fry here every day. Before they can net swim in British Columbia waters, small Atlantic salmon must be immunized against two pathogens found in Pacific salmon.

Director of the installation of the multinational Mowi for around a decade, Chris McNeill firmly believes that his industry is doing useful work: “We are putting a healthy protein on people’s plates. What can be more satisfying than that? »

The Ontario native, who migrated to Vancouver Island nearly 25 years ago, is not fooled. “People on the West Coast disagree with what we’re doing,” he laments, a Maple Leafs cap screwed on his head. I think it’s more based on emotion. »

British Columbia’s open-net salmon aquaculture industry is therefore on the verge of extinction. If Ottawa granted a five-year extension to the industry – the end was planned for 2024 – a (new) deadline was set: June 30, 2029.

The federal government claims to have very concrete reasons: the protection of wild Pacific salmon, which “faces unprecedented threats to its survival”, as well as the need to promote “more sustainable aquaculture practices” .

Introduction and transmission of pathogens, pollution from food distributed in cages, interactions (predation, competition) between wild salmon and farmed salmon that have slipped through the cracks: salmon farming in open net enclosures poses several risks for wild salmon, according to the report The State of the Salmon 2024 of the Pacific Salmon Foundation. This adds to the fact that warming is causing a less nutritious species of zooplankton to migrate from the south to the northeast of the Pacific, according to a report published in 2019. Chinook salmon populations, in particular, are declining, it says. .

Already, in 2023, the permits for 15 sites located in the Discovery Islands archipelago, off the coast of Campbell River, have not been renewed. Ottawa’s decision was challenged in Federal Court by Mowi Canada West and two First Nations, but without success.

Charm operation

Hence the low-lying mines in Port Hardy, on northeastern Vancouver Island, where the branch of the Norwegian salmon giant has offices. Hence also, we can guess, the charm operation that the company deploys during the transition from The Pressin mid-September.

From Port Hardy, we are taken by boat (literally) to Duncan Island. In a small cove sheltered from the tides are 12 cages where hundreds of thousands of salmon arrived by truck from Campbell River are piled up like sardines.

Mike Fouquette has “his” cage. His favorites.

His boss Jason Saunders agrees. “I wouldn’t do this if I knew it would harm the ocean,” he assures us before taking us on a tour of one of the cages. All are surrounded by an electrified cable, just to keep the voracious sea lions at bay.

The salmon, which will spend 18 to 22 months in these nets before reaching their optimal weight, are fed by a machine resembling a periscope, which disperses pellets by rotating on itself.

The dispensers are operated remotely, in the operations control center. Nothing is left to chance: on dry land, in the room located at the end of the Port Hardy quay, Mowi employees have their eyes glued to screens.

Cameras installed in the cages help determine whether the salmon are full, in real time (basically, when the pellets, which appear red on the monitor, no longer find a buyer). A program compiles the rations and allows trends to be identified.

The agony at Port Hardy?

All of this obviously requires investment. And if the federal government forces Mowi Canada West to convert to a land-based, closed-loop breeding operation, the company will withdraw its logs, predicts Janet Parsons, manager of the processing plant.

“After the closures at the Discovery Islands, we went from about 500 employees to 340 because the Surrey processing plant [sur le continent, non loin de Vancouver] was closed, she relates. It would be the end of Port Hardy,” prophesies Janet Parsons.

The mayor of the small coastal town, Pat Corbett-Labatt, is also “very concerned”.

However, the company has innovated a lot on a scientific level “to ensure that it is respectful of the environment”, and it is “ready to continue”, argues the first magistrate.

If the industry has a bad press, it is because “many activist groups” have interfered in the debate, and they have “conveyed so many negative messages towards the industry”, regrets Pat Corbett -Labatt.

There is also William Shatner. “F**k off, open net pen salmon farms!” Your *** salmon farms are ***ing my wild salmon population,” exclaims the interpreter of Captain Kirk in a video published last June.

Watch the video (in English)

The video, which is punctuated with foul language and gestures, was filmed in response to the decision by the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, Diane Lebouthillier, to grant a reprieve to the industry in June last.

“A consultation initiative”

For a reason that has not been specified, Minister Lebouthillier is no longer responsible for the salmon file. However, we know that an indigenous group argued that Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) was in a conflict of interest due to its dual role.

The responsibility to both promote and regulate the industry was raised as early as 2012 by the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Fraser River Sockeye Salmon Populations.

“I am concerned that by leaving its research program at the mercy of commercial concerns, DFO is not giving due priority to the conservation and protection of wild salmon,” the commissioner wrote.

The salmon file is now led by Parliamentary Secretary Ryan Turnbull.

He was entrusted with chairing an interdepartmental group made up of representatives from 10 departments and the National Research Council Canada. He will lead “a consultation initiative,” the federal government announced on September 20.

The Conservative Party did not respond to emails sent by The Press about the salmon farming industry. It is therefore unclear what a Poilievre government will do with it if it comes to power in the coming months.