Fisheries Committee on Oct. 28th, 2010

[Ruth Salmon]

That's an interesting comment. I don't disagree that it's a complex system and that we need to look at the big picture. My only concern is that what we may be looking at--because we can do something about it--is not necessarily going to be the solution. We might be able to eliminate salmon farming because we can do something about that and we don't know how to deal with global warming, but is that ultimately going to give us the results we need? What's the loss in terms of other benefits, in terms of providing seafood and providing jobs? What's the loss to Canada?

I don't disagree that it needs to be looked at in the full context, but just because we can do something about salmon farming shouldn't be the reason that we take that kind of action.

[Clare Backman]

That's not to diminish the fact that we do take that very seriously and that we are making progress in managing the impacts of salmon farming. I mentioned, for example, that in the Broughton Archipelago the incidence of sea lice on our fish and on the wild fish has been going down for the last five years, to the point that you can barely find them now in March and April on the wild fish. That's evidence that we take that aspect very seriously. We do need to make those changes.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Go ahead, Monsieur Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I feel that there are some contradictions in your presentation and your document. You say that fish are becoming increasingly scarce, that aquaculture is the way of the future, but that animal feed is needed for salmon farming. On the one hand, fish stocks are declining, but on the other hand, feed is required for salmon farming. That's a bit contradictory. I wanted to know how you are tackling such a major challenge.

[Ruth Salmon]

It's an interesting question. The only thing I would say in response is that as we just mentioned, we are using less fish meal and fish oil than we used to. There is a sustainable fishery that is going to be utilized, by others if not by aquaculture, and right now it's being used in other animal feed industries. It's being used in the pet food industry. If we say we're not going to have aquaculture, that feed is still going to be utilized by other industries.

[Clare Backman]

I think it's important to realize why we grow fish in the first place. Fish are very excellent converters of feed into protein. We have other options--poultry, swine, beef--but those tend to take, depending on the animal, five to ten times as much feed “in” to produce a pound of fish “out”. That's why salmon, and fish in general, are a very efficient form of agriculture when you're growing protein. Right off the bat, fish are highly efficient in converting feed into flesh.

You're asking about the pressure on the wild fish that are used to make this fish meal that goes into growing the fish and the feed. As I mentioned earlier, we're aware of that. We're alive to the fact that we can't waste that. We have to be more efficient with that. Around the world we're reducing our reliance on those fish products and moving towards a lower and lower level of utilization of fish.

As I mentioned, in British Columbia our goal is to actually grow more salmon than the amount of fish we put into those salmon, and we'll be there in a couple of years.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Do you have any figures regarding the feed used for salmon farming? I'm wondering how much less feed is used now compared to what was used at the beginning. Do you have any figures on the quantities used before and those used now?

[Clare Backman]

Those figures are available. As a company, we have been routinely producing those figures and posting them on our website. I'll make them available to the committee.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Very well.

Now, I would like us to talk about the infamous emamectin benzoate, or SLICE. I'm not sure about its definition, but this is its common name. My understanding is that sea lice, like bacteria, have developed some resistance to this product. I was wondering if you're familiar with this situation.

If so, can you tell us about its negative affect on the industry? I would also like to know what your recommendations are for solving the problem.

[Ruth Salmon]

I'll start, and then Clare can fill in.

Yes, we are aware of it, and certainly on the east coast of Canada we experienced that resistance earlier. Clare mentioned in his comments that we're not seeing it in British Columbia yet, but we're certainly aware that with continued use and with no other therapeutants available, we potentially could see resistance in British Columbia as well. That's why it's so critical to have an integrated pest management program the way other farmers do. They have a variety of therapeutants they can use as pesticides in those kinds of issues.

No, we're not seeing resistance in British Columbia yet. Yes, we are seeing it in Atlantic Canada, so the critical need to have an integrated pest management program for Canada is certainly there.

[Clare Backman]

We monitor the effectiveness of every treatment of this SLICE product every time it's used. That's the first way of knowing whether or not we're seeing any indication of resistance. We haven't seen a decline in the effectiveness of the SLICE product. The second way is through a laboratory bioassay. It can be conducted on the sea lice themselves to see if they're becoming resistant. That is new technology on the west coast that has not yet produced any results.

The efficacy is still very high, but as Ruth mentioned, in a good integrated pest management program in any kind of agriculture, you need to rotate the product so that resistance doesn't build up. That's why I mentioned earlier that having additional products to use is something we could use more support for on the west coast.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

I would kick myself later if I missed my chance to ask you about what was said in the newspaper La Presse, among others, about what happened in New Brunswick. You represent the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance. So, I would like to know what you think about the issue.

Would you like to comment on what happened? Do we need to put things in perspective?

[Ruth Salmon]

My response is that Atlantic Canada is going through some challenging times because they have to deal with sea lice and they don't have enough treatments. They have some new technology--the well boat technology is assisting--but they are under a lot of strain to get new products. Right now, they don't have many.

They do have some real issues, and that's why the integrated pest management program is important. Again, they have some public relations issues, because while they are trying to handle this issue, they're also under the lens of scrutiny from the press and other fishermen. I think they're doing a good job of trying to meet with their local fishermen to explain what the challenges are and to work with them. Unfortunately, that didn't come across in that article.

There are some challenges right now. It's really based on the fact that they just don't have the variety of products they need to control the sea lice.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Go ahead, Mr. Donnelly.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Welcome to our guests.

I have a couple of questions. The first one picks up on the transparency and controversy issues.

Ruth, you used words like “largely mitigated” and “minimal impact.” We've heard testimony in this committee from scientists who have said that sea lice from fish farms are definitely a problem on the west coast, and it seems from your word choice that you also feel that is possible.

Could you comment a bit further on that? It seems to be part of the controversy. We'll leave it at that.

[Ruth Salmon]

I'll start, and then Clare might want to make a few comments.

Generally what I feel is that the industry has improved its sustainability track record considerably over the last 10 to 15 years. In terms of sustainability, you're never at that point. The industry is on a continual track, so the monitoring and the research and development that companies such as Marine Harvest and others have done have informed our practices.

We know the importance of monitoring and maintaining low sea lice levels, particularly in the springtime. I think that at one point in time--and Clare can speak to that--we just didn't have enough information. Now we have it. We know how to manage farms sustainably.

I didn't mean to say that we're there and everything is perfect, but we are certainly doing a good job, a responsible job, of managing sea lice in British Columbia. That will continue to improve as new information and new studies and new monitoring take place.

Clare, did you want to add to that?

[Clare Backman]

Sure.

There's been an immense amount of study done on sea lice on the west coast. The effect of sea lice on wild salmon, especially in the juvenile stage, is all relatively new. There was hardly any a few years ago, and now we have quite a bit.

The original concern that the sea lice would be decimating the wild salmon has had to be modified, because we know that wild salmon have an immune response to sea lice and most of them can shed sea lice fairly quickly.

We now know that there is a concern with those species of salmon that go to sea when they're very small. Those are chum and pink salmon. The first few weeks they're in the ocean is the time of the major risk, and it's to those two species. They can be damaged by sea lice that attach to them before they get to be more than about half a gram in size.

So we're working together with regulators and with other researchers and people with environmental concerns within the environmental movement to focus our management on mitigating the risks to the wild salmon during the part of their life cycle when they're that small.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Another aspect of this controversy--it was brought up earlier--is access to information and making information public. I know there is an emerging concern about ISA, a specific disease that could come to the Pacific and may very well be on the Pacific now.

What would your response be to that in terms of the testing and the records available to show the public in order to assuage this concern?

[Clare Backman]

With respect to the ISA virus, it has never been identified in wild fish in the northern hemisphere of the Pacific Ocean, and it certainly hasn't been identified in our fish. Because it hasn't existed there, it wasn't tested for many years back, but it has been added to the routine testing over the past three to four years. All the companies raising fish now are routinely testing for that virus as a component of their ongoing testing.

The last couple of years of regulatory reports do indicate this testing and do indicate that it hasn't been found. So we are being vigilant in looking at that.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Is that information available on your website?

[Clare Backman]

It is available now, specifically through the information provided to the Cohen commission. Through that, all the raw data for the last five years, including that information, will become public.

It is not on our website specifically. We've been reporting out on sea lice management, but this is an area of discussion, and through the new federal regulation this information will become more transparent and more available.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. Kamp.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Ruth and Clare, for coming. We appreciate your input on this important issue.

I have a series of questions, but just to satisfy my own curiosity, you said the feed for these farmed salmon contain fish products. So what fish products are we talking about that form the bulk of the feed for salmon?

[Clare Backman]

Well, we have a commodity in the world--it's called fish meal--that for decades, if not for over a century, has been available for agriculturists to access in making feed. It consists of small fish that are captured in the oceans of the world. Just to name a few, you have mackerel, sardines, and anchovy. These are wild-caught fish that are then turned into a meal, which is a ground-up product. That is then available for feed producers to make feed for swine or poultry or, in our case, our fish.

But it's not entirely that product; the feed is actually a mixture of vitamins, minerals, fish oil, and fish meal in the right components in order to meet nutritional requirements of salmon. Recently more and more we have been substituting fish meal and fish oil with other forms of oil--canola oil is a good one that is very useful--and other forms of protein, such as soy or poultry proteins, which can substitute for the fish. We're now down to where about 15% of the protein is now fish protein in our feed.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

Thank you for that clarification.

There was an article in the Vancouver Sun, I think yesterday, that referred to some work done by some University of Victoria researchers, or work led by John Volpe at the University of Victoria. The article at least acknowledges the point that you are making about the declining capture fishery and the increasing amount of protein coming from farmed salmon.

I'm not sure if this is quite true yet, but the article says that for the first time in history, the bulk of seafood consumed by humans is likely coming from fish farms rather than from natural habitats.

So are we there now already?