Evidence of meeting #12 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 industry.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Director, Sustainability, Marine Harvest Canada
It's tested throughout the year, all the time.
Liberal
Lawrence MacAulay Liberal Cardigan, PE
On eco-certification, do you see this becoming easier to handle in close containment or in open-net aquaculture? Would you comment on that? Eco-certification is something that is coming. It's here, and it's not controlled by this government but by the world community. It's an issue that we have to deal with, no matter what fish you are talking about.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
It's a growing trend, and I would say the Canadian industry, over the last two to five years, has been more interested in third-party certification and is moving in that direction.
At this time, the number of standards and certification programs is growing. I'm not aware of any certification program for closed containment; it would require different standards. At this time, the standards are focused on net cage technology. That's growing, but we're not there yet.
As for mussels from your province, there are fewer standards and certification programs available for bivalves than for salmon, for example. We're in the process of developing those. You'll see, in the next two years, more and more programs available. At present, there are no standards for closed containment Atlantic salmon.
Director, Sustainability, Marine Harvest Canada
There are certification standards available right now for salmon aquaculture in the ocean or hatcheries. A lot of emphasis has been put on a couple of programs, including the WWF-sponsored program, the AFC, and the GAA best aquaculture practices certification program. These are attracting a lot of attention because they have moved more into the eco-certification zone. They worked with environmental groups directly.
At the beginning of these programs—and I would say here that I was involved with our company in the WWF program since its inception—there was never a focus on any one kind of technology. The idea was to identify standards that the whole industry could adopt in order to move it toward greater sustainability and less environmental impact, regardless of whether net pen or recirculation systems were being used, or whatever. It never focused on any one particular kind.
Liberal
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It seems to me that if you look at every jurisdiction around the world, you'll see that wherever there has been a fish farm, there have been environmental problems. They're now coming to the west coast of Canada. Look at the Scandinavian countries, look at South America. There have been these associated problems. Whether it's parasites or disease, there have been issues. It seems that something needs to change.
Dan, you mentioned that to grow fish and make money is pretty much the issue. I would add that your comment makes sense when you externalize the environment.
Another trend is that we're starting to look at life-cycle analysis and doing full cost accounting. We're actually starting to look at including the environment in our analysis, because what was essentially being done for free, or not as part of the balance sheet, is now becoming a concern to people around the world. It certainly is in the area that I come from on the west coast.
Clare, you mentioned the pilot project that Marine Harvest is working on. I'm wondering if you could give us an update as to where that project is at. You mentioned specifically that you've been a little more active in the last year. Is there something you could provide on how that's progressing, where it's at, and any news on that front?
Director, Sustainability, Marine Harvest Canada
The intention of the pilot project, which I referred to a couple of times, including the siting and engineering reviews, is twofold.
First of all, it is to identify the real costs of doing Atlantic salmon in British Columbia on a commercial scale. Right now we don't have demonstration projects on a commercial scale that can actually bring that information forward. We have debates about technology and about what the costs and energy requirements might be.
The second important aspect of the project is to investigate the size of the fish that we deliver into the ocean beyond the 100 gram smolt level, that is, to investigate 300 gram, 500 gram, and one kilogram fish delivered into the net pens. These things also haven't been explored, so it's a combination of those two.
Where is it at? To analyze the program at a 2,500 tonne commercial level, the information from the 300 tonne pilot project will be extrapolated to that the 2,500 tonne level. The 300 tonne facility is going to cost us in the neighbourhood of $8 million to build in British Columbia. We are currently at a place where we're trying to attract and find the funds to move forward on that. We haven't yet identified the funds. Internal funding is not forthcoming at this point in time. With the current situation for salmon in North America, we're going into a bit of a decreased price scenario, so we don't have the ability to move forward, which we would have had a few years ago when the pricing of salmon was strong.
To answer your question, we're at a point where we've made some decisions on technology, and have a site and are moving forward on getting the site work completed, but we don't have a firm date for beginning the pilot itself.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
Could I make a comment on your initial comment about disease and parasites?
NDP
Fin Donnelly NDP New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC
Sorry, I have a quick follow-up question before we go there, because I have limited time.
Could you comment, Clare, on why you took on this pilot project?
Then if there's time, Ruth....
Director, Sustainability, Marine Harvest Canada
Well, I go back to the first part of my comments where I said that the reasons were to introduce actual operating information and costs—actual energy costs, actual capital costs, actual market receptivity information—into this debate in British Columbia, which is quite a large debate about where closed-system aquaculture fits.
Now that's half of it. The other half of it, as I say, was to explore the benefits of providing larger fish to move into the ocean environment for our existing facilities. Think about it: We're growing 40,000 tonnes of salmon a year in net pens. We're building a pilot to provide information on 300 tonnes of production, which can be extrapolated to 2,500 tonnes. Everything we currently look at says it's going to cost more than being in the net pens, but we're committed to finding ways to move forward and understanding this discussion in a greater sense.
So how can we do something that blends finding out more about the full harvest size and aids our growing business in the ocean as well? That's basically the answer for you there.
Executive Director, Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance
I just want to comment quickly. You mentioned disease and parasites. I think it's important to put aquaculture in a bigger context as well, because any other food-producing system has challenges with regard to disease and parasites.
Ninety-eight percent of all the fish that are harvested through aquaculture receive no antibiotics. So our ability to deal with fish health through vaccinations has improved greatly. Parasites are a problem for terrestrial agriculture, which has been around longer. It has more access to therapeutants. We're just building our toolbox, and we'll be in a better situation in a few years to have more treatments available.
So I'm just putting it in the context that aquaculture is farming and we struggle with the same challenges as other farmers.
President, Canadian Aquaculture Systems Inc.
Could I just add very quickly that I hope we have a chance to come back to your comment about externalities at some point during this discussion? Thank you.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
With this next question, I hope to prove to Mr. Cleary that no question is a dumb question. Your question was excellent, by the way.
I just want to speak a little bit more about something that Mr. Sopuck started on. I need to quantify the demand a little bit more. You talked about a percentage increase, and my accounting mind is telling me that there is this thing called supply and demand and that at some point the market is going to be saturated. I would think this is ultimately going to drive down the price of salmon and make aquaculture unfeasible.
Has anybody looked at the demand? Is there an infinite demand, or at some point.... Have any break-even analyses been done? I'd just like to get a better understanding of that.
Director, Sustainability, Marine Harvest Canada
In a general sense, our business is about raising salmon for the population of North America, and everybody tells us that the population of North America is growing. Therefore, if our percentage of consumption is maintained per capita on a growing population, you will get increased demand. So that's the understanding we come back to when we say that our market is growing at 3% to 5% a year and, therefore, that our ability to produce salmon needs to grow at 3% to 5% a year.
Along the way of that straight line, there are ups and downs, based on what you mentioned, that is, supply and demand. So when supply is short, then people will pay more for a product, and when supply is great, they will pay less for a product. And that's what we're going through right now. We will have increased supply for the next few months, maybe a year or so; but over the long term, based on population growth, we expect that demand will continue to grow by 3% to 5%.
Dan, do you have anything to add?
President, Canadian Aquaculture Systems Inc.
In a nutshell, if you look at documents from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, they're full of information about the global shortage of fish. We're not even close to being able to fulfill the demand. If we doubled the size of the aquaculture industry today, we'd be lucky to fill the demand. It's almost an impossible target to reach.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
Here's my second question, and this goes back to this pilot proposal.
Clare, you mentioned the costs involved. I'm trying to get an understanding of how these are being funded to this point in time and what you see as the role of the federal government in this particular initiative.
Director, Sustainability, Marine Harvest Canada
Well, we did make application for federal funding through a couple of programs, the AIMAP of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans for aquaculture innovation, and we made application through Science Development Technology Canada, SDTC. Both of those groups were supportive, and we were progressing those applications forward. But those were not even half of what the required budget is for the pilot program, at roughly $8 million. We're at the point right now of identifying that larger piece of money, more than half of that, in order to be able to go back to those agencies.
In a general sense, as has mentioned, I think at this point in time the federal government should be supportive of these programs that are going to allow us to come to terms with the real costs and benefits of these newer technologies, so we can get past the discussion about whether it's all or nothing and find out exactly where it fits into the marketplace and the overall plan for salmon going forward.
