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.
Conservative
Bryan Hayes Conservative Sault Ste. Marie, ON
At this point, would you say that funding is the most significant obstacle to the development and implementation of closed containment salmon aquaculture on a larger scale? Is that the number one impediment right now in your mind?
Conservative
Patricia Davidson Conservative Sarnia—Lambton, ON
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thanks very much to our presenters for being here this afternoon.
I have a wrap-up question to ask. We've heard a lot of different things here this afternoon. We've heard about the several small projects that are under way. We've heard about possible studies for the viability of commercial-scale production of closed containment. We've talked about 2 of the 16 sites that showed they had a suitable water supply. We've talked about waste control, albeit not much despite it probably playing a big part in closed containment when you're talking with communities and so on. There's also been talk about there being no standardization in the industry or sector.
I think that those all play a big part, but is there anything currently that is a more significant obstacle to the development and implementation of the larger-scale aquaculture projects? Secondly, are there any regulatory changes that would make closed containment more viable?
Director, Sustainability, Marine Harvest Canada
To answer the first part of your question on any impediments to the development of the larger examples, I'm thinking that by this you mean the current net-pen facilities and their growth on both coasts. The impediments are largely regulatory at this point in time. We're waiting in British Columbia to be able to submit new applications for locations that are considered to be appropriate and sustainable, with plans to demonstrate that these intended facilities would be sustainable in those locations.
Also, we've covered fairly well here today the type of activity that is of interest in the closed systems, which are less consistent in terms of their designs. The ones I mentioned early on would probably each be working with a different firm and a different technology supplier, so there would be variations from one to the other.
I didn't mention the amount of technology and effort that go into cleaning the water, but I will say that if you have tanks of fish on one side of the building in a recirculating aquaculture facility, then you have a wall, and on the other side you have the water treatment, which is equally as large and would look like a water treatment facility of a municipality, for example. A lot of energy goes into taking out the solids, into taking out the CO2 and the nitrogen, and reinstituting the oxygen, and cleaning the water so that it can be put back in again. This part of the water treatment is where very much of the debate occurs around the specific type of technology that you're going to choose.
President, Canadian Aquaculture Systems Inc.
I'd just like to make it really clear that in my opinion--and there are many examples of this--closed containment is economically viable today. We have coho farms that are producing coho and selling into a niche market. We've got tilapia farms that have been growing fish in closed containment systems and selling to live markets in Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, and New York City for 15 to 20 years already. These are closed containment systems. They work.
The thing that sets them apart is that they're producing a premium-priced product, so you can afford the technology that Clare just explained. When you go to a commodity product like Atlantic salmon and you're competing with producers around the world who are using a lower-cost technology to produce it, that is, net pens, then you're going to have a hard time competing unless you become extremely large scale with very high capital costs.
November 1st, 2011 / 5:10 p.m.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you very much. This concludes our time for questions today.
Do you have any closing comments before we end our session with you today?
Mr. Stechey.
President, Canadian Aquaculture Systems Inc.
Thank you very much again for the opportunity to be here today. I think it's a valuable exercise that you're going through.
I'd just like to come back to the comment that was made about externalities, for a moment if I may. I think it's a valid comment. Clearly, externalities are an economic principle that need to be factored in here, but I think they need to be factored in within the proper context and that you need to look at them from both sides of the equation.
Ruth mentioned the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, a tool that is widely applied. It applies to virtually every aquaculture project in this country by virtue of their needing a federal approval to go forward. Therefore, a comprehensive review is done at an early planning stage to assess all of the risks and to mitigate those risks and to put the proper measures in place before any initiative can go ahead. All of the externalities that are talked about are mentioned there.
On the other side of the equation, though, I would encourage you to look at the societal costs, because, ultimately, when you look at the definition of an externality, it's a cost that's borne by society for an exclusive benefit some place else. So the question is, what is the societal cost of salmon farming, and that really needs to be addressed, because when we're applying this properly and going by all of the measures, this is a sustainable industry, as Ruth said. I would echo her comment very strongly. I don't think there are many better examples of a sustainable agriculture sector than salmon farming, just owing to the food conversion and the way the industry is operated. Can it be better? Absolutely, there's no question. This industry gets better year by year by year. Technologies evolve and develop and we improve. That's what it's all about.
On the other side of it, though, I want to bring up the precautionary approach because it hasn't been mentioned at the meeting today. It may have been brought up elsewhere. It's a principle that's widely thrown out there on the table. This measure says, in the face of uncertainty, exercise precaution. When you have a whack of scientific certainty, do nothing. That's the way it's applied. But I would really question you and ask, what's the societal cost of doing nothing?
Underscoring both SIA and the precautionary approach are the notions of serious and irreversible harm. I would really argue that in salmon aquaculture, when there's a problem, we retract. In the worst case scenario, you pull the farm and there is no serious, long-term damage from that operation. So you have reversibility, which gives you the leeway to go ahead and use adaptive management and to try to improve as you go forward. We really don't exercise that in this industry anywhere near the extent it should be. Society is paying a cost for that because we are losing economic development opportunities on that front.
I would just encourage the committee to look at it from that side as well. We can move forward, we can improve, but let's work cooperatively. Let's all roll up our sleeves and come to the table and say, we're going to make this industry succeed.
Thank you very much.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you very much.
As there is no further business, the meeting is adjourned.