Evidence of meeting #16 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was facility.
A recording is available from Parliament.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
If there is no more open net, and you need to move everything to closed containment, what kind of an area are you speaking about acreage-wise to replace the existing fishery and to expand it?
4:35 p.m.
Chief, 'Namgis First Nation
I think there's information in your kit that tells you that. It doesn't take that much more land than that leased for the existing open net farms.
Just speaking for the first nations on the coast of B.C., they have reserve lands that are in these areas that would be good for open net operation, where there's good underground water. So I don't think there would be very much loss in employment. You might have heard there's been a huge layoff on the coast by Marine Harvest because of the market conditions. They've laid off a lot of people.
4:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Excuse me, Mrs. Davidson, your time is up. Thank you.
Ms. Doré Lefebvre.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you Chief Cranmer and Mr. Hobson for joining us today. It's a real pleasure to have you with us.
My questions will be about the Gwa'ni hatchery project. I am not sure whether I am pronouncing the name correctly.
Unless I am mistaken, that project has been in your community since 1978. As part of that project, incubators are used to return wild salmon to rivers in your community.
Is that right?
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
I want to compare your two projects. In the closed-containment agriculture project, which you're now presenting, you recycle solid waste and compost it. You reuse water. The effluent 20% is used for water culture or aquaponics.
Did the hatchery project you had already started inspire you to launch this closed-containment agriculture project?
4:35 p.m.
Chief, 'Namgis First Nation
No, it's completely different. In our salmon enhancement project, the Gwa'ni hatchery, we catch the wild salmon as they're coming in, we take the eggs from them, and then incubate the eggs. When they've hatched, they're kept in containers until they reach a certain size, and then they're released.
Actually, we're going to expand that to what Fisheries called “ocean ranching”, whereby we raise millions and millions of fry to a little bigger size, release them, and harvest them when they come back in.
So it's two completely different systems.
4:35 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
Do you still use any ecological procedures that are somewhat similar to what you use in the closed-containment aquaculture project?
Have you already experimented with water recycling or similar things in the current project?
4:35 p.m.
Chief, 'Namgis First Nation
No, the Gwa'ni hatchery isn't a recirculating system. The water comes from the groundwater. It goes through the incubation process and then out into the river.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
Earlier, you told my colleague that your location was perfect for closed-containment aquaculture.
Why is it perfect for that type of a project?
4:40 p.m.
Chief, 'Namgis First Nation
It's perfect because the groundwater is there. There's a lot of groundwater. There's a little bit of salinity in the water, which is good for this kind of project. It's close to the transportation route. The highway goes right by the site. Hydro to the site is easily accessible. Transportation costs would not be very expensive.
It is a perfect site. It's close to the people we may need to call to do repairs on equipment. Yes, it's a good site.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
What triggered the development of this project? What made you want to develop a closed-containment aquaculture project?
4:40 p.m.
Chief, 'Namgis First Nation
As you know, in the earlier days we stated that we were against the open net fish farms because of the obvious damage to the environment. But we also said that we needed to provide an alternative to that, which is closed containment. We were just fortunate that our friend and colleague Eric Hobson was here to assist us in that.
4:40 p.m.
NDP
Rosane Doré Lefebvre NDP Alfred-Pellan, QC
How did the members of your community react to the project?
4:40 p.m.
Chief, 'Namgis First Nation
The members of our community were quite supportive. There of course was concern about diseases. When we explained to them that the environmental monitoring would be quite strict and would be ongoing throughout the years of the project, they were quite supportive, yes, especially when they realized, too, that the open net fish farms were killing our wild salmon.
4:40 p.m.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Welcome, gentlemen.
I just want to pick up on Mr. MacAulay's train of thought. I'm getting mixed messages in terms of whether open nets need to be banned altogether. You mentioned better sites as a possibility.
Mr. Hobson, you started on a train of thought earlier and were actually cut off. You said that they are managed “much better” now than they used to be. I'm sensing that things are getting much better in the open net technology, and I just want to be sure: are you convinced that there are no remedies to the environmental concerns presented by open net technology?
I just want you to expand on how things are getting better and what more needs to be done, if anything.
4:40 p.m.
President, SOS Marine Conservation Foundation
As I said, the farmers have changed their operations to recognize the out-migration periods of the wild salmon. There is early harvest, before the out-migration. There's the addition of therapeutants to the feed at the right time so that the lice don't exist on the fish in as great numbers as they used to. That has helped.
There's a heightened awareness of the wild fish that wasn't there 10 years ago. It's improving. But on the overall impact, I can't tell you whether that has resulted in a 50% decline in the mortality of wild smolts over that period of time or whether it's been 25%. It certainly isn't a full answer; it's not like closed containment, where there is no interaction, but it will be some factor lower than it was five years ago.
To me, the open net cages are just a ticking time bomb. Eventually, if it hasn't already happened, you're going to have a pathogen outbreak in those farms just because of the density in the farms and because of the number of farms involved.
I think the farmers do their best. Obviously, they want to keep their crop alive. They want to get it to grow to market size so that they can sell it. They use antibiotics in their feed to try to control the pathogens. They use SLICE to try to control their lice infestations. They've made a lot of those moves. But the research shows that the pathogens are mutating more quickly than they can catch them. It is very similar to what's happening in the human population.
If you leave the status quo in place--and I can't tell you whether it will be next week or 10 years from now--there will eventually be a major problem that we as humans will not be able to control.
4:45 p.m.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you.
As well, in your presentation you stated that the project will demonstrate the commercial viability of producing Atlantic salmon for table food. Obviously you've done the numbers. Unfortunately, we don't see those numbers here, so I can't say for certain whether or not it will be viable. I'm still struggling with the job comparisons between the jobs that might be lost in open net versus closed.
I mean, I can't ask you for your numbers, but you could voluntarily provide them. I'd certainly be interested in seeing the business case, because this doesn't demonstrate the business case to me at all in terms of costs moving forward. You indicate that you're going to validate your operating costs, but obviously you have a model; you must have some sense of what they might be.
Are there any figures that you're able to present to us that demonstrate the viability of the business case?
4:45 p.m.
President, SOS Marine Conservation Foundation
When we went for our funding for this farm, I would say the most rigorous process was Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC. We wrote a detailed application as per their requirements. They have a multi-stage due diligence process that they go through, and they require a full business plan as part of the application. It's like any business plan you'd see for anything. It has pro forma financial statements in it.
We have a model whose sheer number of spreadsheets defies belief. We model and we watch the numbers based on what the fish prices are, what we think the premium in the prices is going to be. We do sensitivity analysis to feed costs, to energy costs, to labour costs. We look at different density scenarios. We look at different feed conversion ratio numbers. We look at thermal growth coefficients to try to determine how fast these fish may or may not grow. It's quite an intricate model.
We've shown it to various people who are in the modelling business and they think it's a very appropriate model. It's passed the due diligence of some very sophisticated funding agencies. I'm quite pleased with the model that we've created.
4:45 p.m.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
Mr. Hobson, in Chile, as I'm sure you're aware, they had a major disease problem. If I understood correctly, your fish would probably have to be about 30% higher than the open net fish that would be produced. To judge by what took place in Chile and what can happen around the world, it's pretty important that we have the technology to do this. After all, as you have indicated, we do not know when a great disaster could happen in the fish farming industry. Most likely it would be the open net.
Would you like to comment on that?
4:50 p.m.
President, SOS Marine Conservation Foundation
I'm sure you've been following the ISA stories over the last few weeks. I think it's the same virulent strain of ISA—I'm not a scientist—that got into Chile and decimated their open net-pen business about three years ago. Apparently they reported another outbreak of ISA in Chile just last month. I think it's been confined to one farm site, and they've harvested that entire farm site as a result.
The scientists in B.C. found ISA in a couple of sockeye smolts up in Rivers Inlet that were tested in the globally certified labs--a couple of them test for ISA in fish--and found to be positive. Subsequent testing by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency basically said, I think, that the samples were degraded but in their estimation in fact were negative.
So you have this same story. Since I've been involved in this issue, there's been this polarized situation, where everybody takes one end of the spectrum or the other and nobody meets in the middle. Closed containment is meant to meet in the middle.