Assurances that the federal government is making major investments in aquaculture research sound a little hollow coming from an entity that just closed regional Department of Fisheries and Oceans libraries and appears to have little respect for environmental science.
The Harper government has lifted its moratorium on fish-farm licences, but rather than making public announcements, Fisheries Minister Gail Shea informed fish farmers of the decision in October, then sent letters about the decision to several First Nations last week.
The DFO is reviewing 11 applications, two for new fish farms and the others for expansion of existing farms.
Ottawa placed a moratorium on fish-farm licences in 2011 while Justice Bruce Cohen conducted his inquiry into the 2009 collapse of the Fraser River sockeye run.
After three years of hearing and analysis, Cohen issued a massive report in 2012 that called for, among many other things, a freeze on salmon-farm development in the Discovery Islands area and recommended more research into the role of fish farms.
Cohen didn’t put the blame on fish farms for the salmon decline — he said the inquiry didn’t find a “smoking gun,” a single cause for the collapse, but evidence indicated predation, infectious diseases and contaminants were contributing factors. Still, his nervousness about fish farms should not be discounted.
“I accept the evidence that management practices taken within net pens are intended to reduce the risk of disease as much as possible and to keep both farmed and wild fish healthy,” Cohen said. “However, I cannot determine on the evidence before me whether those measures ensure that the risk of serious harm from disease and pathogen transfer is a minimal one.”
In the absence of certainty, caution should prevail.
But the Harper government doesn’t seem to be cautious, except in the way it announced — or more accurately, didn’t announce — the lifting of the moratorium on applications for fish-farm licences. Quick to make assertive announcements on developments that will show it in a good light, the Harper government is more taciturn about decisions on issues that will stir public protest. This is one of those issues.
Shea said in an October statement that in its 2013 budget, the government included $57.5 million over five years to “bolster our environmental protection in the aquaculture sector through science, enhanced regulatory regime and improved reporting.”
The statement invokes science, but this is the government that muzzles it scientists, the one that drastically cut the marine contaminants program at the Institute of Ocean Sciences on Patricia Bay. Who will do the research? And if that research produces negative findings, who will tell the public?
Science should help shape public policy, but the Harper government increasingly seems bent on shaping science to fit its political goals. While research sometimes turns up findings that are unpleasant in the short term, science looks beyond the next election. The Conservative government has turned “short-term pain for long-term gain” upside down, yet science and good government shouldn’t be at odds with each other.
We are not stating flatly that fish farms are harmful — they are a significant component of B.C.’s economy, worth more than $400 million in 2012. They produced more than 73,000 tonnes of fish that year, compared to 9,000 tonnes harvested in the wild salmon fishery. Done properly and safely, aquaculture can be a reliable food supply.
But we need to be sure they are safe. Further research into the impacts of aquaculture will not only help protect the wild salmon fishery, it could be beneficial to the long-term viability of the fish-farm industry.
