Fisheries Committee on Oct. 27th, 2011

[Ryan Cleary, NDP, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Thank you, sir.

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you very much.

We now have Ms. Davidson.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thanks very much, Mr. Chair, and thanks very much to our presenters here this afternoon.

It's been extremely interesting, and I'm trying to get a grasp on the whole subject here. I just want to ask a couple of questions for clarification.

First, Mr. Stringer, you talked about world leaders in aquaculture. You said Norway, Scotland, and...?

[Kevin Stringer]

Chile for salmon.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

And Chile for salmon, okay.

Do you collaborate regularly with them in developing and comparing processes as they go along?

[Kevin Stringer]

We do. Salmon aquaculture is fairly new, whereas on the fisheries side, we have formal arrangements through NAFO that have been going on for many, many years. The aquaculture arrangements with different countries are just developing. We now have tripartite arrangements with Norway and Scotland, and we meet fairly regularly with them. We talk about fish health management and about the issues of managing salmon aquaculture. So it's not as formalized on the aquaculture side as it is on the fisheries side. But we do actually have an MOU with Chile, which I think is actually focused on science, but it's on aquaculture management generally.

So we do have arrangements with the other three major players, but it's more opportunistic than anything else. We get together when we meet at big international meetings.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

You also said, I believe, that 50% of the world's fish sources are supplied through all aquaculture.

[Kevin Stringer]

That's not salmon; it's aquaculture.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Yes, okay.

You were talking about closed containment and some of the sensitivities, including the price of salmon, the densities, capital costs, and those types of things. Then you went on to talk about environmental assessments and power use. You said that the amount of power used was quite extensive. Do you have any idea what the difference is between the amount of power used by closed containment, land-based aquaculture, and the other systems?

[Kevin Stringer]

I'll ask Alistair to give you the specifics, but what I can say is that in terms of our economic analysis or feasibility study on closed containment, we found the two big costs that really make it quite different. One was that the original capital cost was enormous for the closed containment, and the other is that you have to be close to a power grid to keep the water temperature at a certain level for these gigantic tanks—and this takes an enormous amount of power.

I'll ask Alistair, who is currently leafing through the study to find the answer to the question--

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Alistair Struthers]

I've run out of time, and I can't find the specific numbers, but they are considerably higher for the closed containment. I would hazard a guess of 10 to 15 times higher.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Wow.

[Alistair Struthers]

They're considerably higher.

[Kevin Stringer]

Jay thinks he knows.

[Dr. Jay Parsons]

I don't have the specific number, but maybe another way to describe the scenario is to compare the difference between net-pen and land-based systems. In net pen, the industry is operating in water. They've got cages in there, and they rely on the natural flow of the currents and tides to move water through the systems. They will often have a barge there with a generator to support the requirements of people living and working on-site. Other than that, there are very limited power requirements for net-pen culture.

If you contrast that with a land-based system, you've got buildings with tanks. You need to be pumping water, depending on the system you're looking at, from the ocean into or around the system. As well, you have the costs for light and heating the water, etc.

So the big difference between a net-pen system and a closed system is in the physical infrastructure, and in maintaining that infrastructure in order to maintain the living conditions for your fish. A closed system requires much, much more power than a net-pen situation.

[Kevin Stringer]

So Alistair found it. It's seven times as much, not 10 times as much.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

Are there other challenges relating to land use that you find with the land-based ones?

[Kevin Stringer]

With land use, you have to be close to a power grid, which is easier said than done. This is a rural industry. Finding a power base to hook up to an appropriate water source can be a real challenge. It may be that the land was not planned for that use.

So a whole lot of things have to come together, unless you're going to move this to the suburbs or closer to the city. That's not to say it can't be done. There are places where those opportunities exist, but it does make it more of a challenge.

[Patricia Davidson, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you.

Mr. MacAulay.

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

On this land-based system in Denmark, you said that $7 million was from the private sector and $2 million from the public purse. Salmon is approximately $2.30 a pound. What price would it have to be, in your opinion, to be profitable?

[Kevin Stringer]

First, let me correct you. If I said it that way, I--

[Lawrence MacAulay, Liberal, Cardigan, PE]

You might not have.

[Kevin Stringer]

Well, I may have.

Our understanding is that it's a $7-million initiative altogether, of which $2.2 million came from government.