Thank you.
The questions you pose are critical to Canadians because DFO management of wild salmon has failed to maintain the fish or the fisheries. Wild salmon must reach the open ocean, and salmon farms are a barrier to them. The problem is that, as salmon farms release unnatural levels of types of pathogens, wild salmon exposed to the farms breathe them in, and these pathogens come into direct contact with their bloodstream. Most wild salmon from the southern half of B.C. are currently inoculated with industrial aquaculture pathogens from Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg, and they become carriers.
Here are three examples of DFO actively avoiding appropriate response to this risk.
In 1990, DFO Pacific Region Director General Pat Chamut wrote the director of trade policy that, “Continued large-scale introductions of [Atlantic salmon eggs] would eventually result in the introduction of exotic disease agents of which the potential impact would be...biologically damaging...and economically devastating”. He was right. The Norwegian PRV was in some of those 30 million eggs.
In 2013, Mowi told the Federal Court that they would be “severely impacted” if they were prohibited from transferring PRV-infected fish into their farms because their hatcheries were infected. While PRV is considered a disease agent everywhere in the world except British Columbia, DFO hid the science showing that PRV causes organ failure in chinook salmon, thus allowing this Norwegian blood virus to escape DFO regulations and spread into the Skeena, the Fraser and everywhere in between, and 95% of farmed salmon for sale in B.C. supermarkets is infected.
During the 2020 consultations between the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and seven first nations of the Discovery Islands on the renewal of 19 salmon farm licences, Dr. Miller-Saunders briefed DFO's director of science that young Fraser sockeye were being infected with the bacteria Tenacibaculum as they passed the salmon farms in the Discovery Islands, and these fish appeared to die. The director of science went and briefed the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association with this information but not the minister, even though the primary concern of the nations she was consulting with was the impact of the farms on Fraser sockeye.
In the third case, DFO staff know that sea lice in salmon are dangerous to young wild salmon, and they set a limit on the number of lice per farmed salmon in the aquaculture conditions of licence, but Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg farms are unable to meet this threshold.
On January 24, 2022, Mowi wrote to Rebecca Reid, director general, DFO, Pacific region, stating that the proposed changes to the conditions of licence “could have significant impact on...the...financial performance of Mowi's operations”. Specifically mentioning sea lice, they say that the pace of “regulatory change is outpacing our company's capacity.” Two weeks later, the draft conditions of licence contained the weakened requirement to produce a plan to reduce sea lice, with no requirement that the plan was actually successful. Mowi's letter is a statement that the salmon farming industry cannot survive regulations that protect wild salmon, and it's clear that wild salmon are not surviving without these regulations.
Here are my recommendations to your questions.
Issue conditions of licence that provide immediate and significant relief to wild salmon and clarity to the salmon farming industry. See my written submission for specifics.
Form a non-government board of scientists to monitor DFO's response to science.
Create a regional director of wild salmon, as per Cohen commission recommendation number four, and populate this division with the scientists who are developing the powerful genomic tools that pinpoint the choke points that are killing wild salmon to allow highly strategic response to reverse extinction curves.
Collaborate closely with first nations. Make this data open access, allowing the mathematical modelers who charted our path through COVID to inform the minister—if we do this, we expect these outcomes.
In closing, I just want to make sure you know that 36 salmon farms have been or will be removed by the 'Namgis, Kwikwasut'inuxw, Mamalilikulla, Gwawaenuk, Kwiakah, Klahoose and Homalco first nations.
Thank you.