Mr. Speaker, I wish to commend the hon. member for Davenport for bringing this very important issue to the House of Commons, the place where these issues should be debated.
I do not think we are here to either slam aquaculture or to promote aquaculture. We are here to debate the discussions and the perceptions that are around aquaculture in Canada.
Aquaculture is not new. A lot of Canadians think the industry is perhaps 15 or 20 years old, but in reality it has been around for a long time. It was in our hatcheries well over 100 years ago.
Aquaculture in Canada and around the world has expanded very rapidly. People have concerns over genetically modified foods. They have concerns over trangenics, or what is called frankenfish. People have concerns about what they are eating when it comes to fish proteins.
I and other members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans have studied aquaculture but not to the extent that we should. When the committee does meet, we will be meeting again on the concerns of aquaculture.
The Liberal government and the previous Conservative government were sleeping when aquaculture was happening. The industry said that it was looking for support and resources in order to ascertain the industry in the new world. How do we replenish fish stocks when we cannot do it for the wild species?
Wild species of salmon, cod, hake and turbot, as well as many other species, are declining in our oceans. The void is being filled by aquaculture, and therein lies the debate. There are people within the department who are traditionalists and who believe commercial fishing is the way to go and that it must be maintained. We also have people within the department saying that the commercial fishery is a thing of the past and that we have to go to aquaculture.
Exactly what does that mean? I and my party believe that aquaculture and the commercial fishing sectors can co-exist but only—and this is where I want to thank the member for bringing the issue up—when we have clear scientific evidence to move ahead.
In the Aspotogan Peninsula near St. Margarets Bay a big battle is being waged by a local community group that does not want to see an aquaculture site expanded in the area. The DFO is doing an environmental assessment. It will pass its recommendations on to the province and the province in the end will make a decision.
Meanwhile the community waits. Meanwhile the businessperson who wants to run the aquaculture site waits. Members can understand why there is so much friction between the community, the commercial fishers who harvest the lobsters and the person who will invest a lot of money in an aquaculture site. There is no streamlined process yet, and this is where a lot of the debate and anger heats up.
On the west coast the aboriginal people are saying that they will, under no circumstance, eat Atlantic salmon because to them it is foreign. When the debate involves all these sectors, it is no wonder people argue and facts go out that are maybe not correct and that there is misinformation. It is not fair to the aquaculture industry, the commercial sector or the communities.
We need clear guidelines on who is responsible for what. Right now the DFO is responsible for the environmental work and the provincial governments are responsible for the licensing and leasing of the sites. That is a contradiction that needs to be streamlined.
Open net aquaculture farming has been going on for many years. Along with the David Suzuki Foundation and many other people we have advocated it is time to move toward a closed net system because the problem with escapees is very real. It is extremely real. The aquaculture industry used to tell us that escaped salmon could not go up rivers and could not survive in the wild or reproduce. We know to the contrary that is not correct.
We also heard that 15 to 20 years ago a tremendous amount of antibiotics used to be added to the feed and to the other sources that feed the penned salmon that are there now. That has been greatly reduced. However, what is feeding those salmon today? Canada does not have that information. We know that a lot of it comes from grains and from vegetable proteins, but a lot of it comes from other fish stocks as well.
Years ago, three pounds of wild fish used to be taken out of the ocean to market one pound of aquaculture salmon. That used to be so, but it is not that way any more.
I believe the aquaculture industry's greatest problem is its public relations efforts. It does not come consistently clear with the information that Canadians need, especially those in coastal communities. Aquaculture can be a future industry. It can have positive growth in the country. However we must make sure the Canadian people know exactly what they are eating when they buy salmon or have it at a restaurant. Almost all salmon in stores, restaurants or on airlines is farmed salmon.
I am encouraging the industry. I tell Mr. Rideout, the head of the CFIA, all the time that he should label the salmon that is in the supermarket. If we are proud of our farmed salmon then we should say so. We should say the salmon came from a particular farm.
We do it with eggs. We mark eggs properly. We tell Canadians what area they come from. We do it with chickens. We do it with beef. Why not label salmon as well? Why not label other fish stocks that are marketed through the farm method, like mussels, oysters, clams, et cetera? If we did that, a lot more Canadians would be aware of what they were eating. They could then ask the questions that are needed.
The North Sea oil in Norway is about to evaporate, probably around 2015. Norway has made it clear that the industry it will focus on in the future is aquaculture. It will be the world leader. It is the world leader now and it does not plan to let that go. Norway is way ahead of Canada when it comes to science, when it comes to co-operation with communities and when it comes to marketing its product around the world. If we want to be in the market we will have to be more open with Canadians and with government officials when the questions come around.
Yves Bastien is the commissioner of aquaculture at DFO. Most of the information on his government website comes directly from the industry. There is a perception that something is not right. If the commissioner of DFO for aquaculture must get his information directly from the industry, there is a perception that the information may be tainted or misleading. That is completely unacceptable.
If DFO is to be in the business of promoting aquaculture, it must make sure it is a completely separate entity. It must gather its own information and not information from the industry.
A cultural clash is happening within DFO between the traditional managers who were born and raised in the commercial fisheries and the new ones who are more used to aquaculture. They will have to get their act together, otherwise aquaculture will not grow in the country. It will be completely at loggerheads.
We cannot and should not ever say that aquaculture will replace the commercial fishery. If we do that we will have abrogated our responsibility as parliamentarians to the natural health of the country and of the planet.
There was a battle the other day between Maine and the U.S. federal government about making Bay of Fundy salmon stocks an endangered species. The American government did so, simply because it does not know what is causing the stocks to collapse. It could be aquaculture. It could be forestry. It could be mining. It could be commercial fishing. It could be environmental problems, global warming or the whole bit.
However when it comes to aquaculture issues, if we want to protect natural species we must have all the information at hand. We simply do not have the information right now.
On behalf of my party I thank the member for Davenport for raising the issue. I wish we could discuss it more and I am sure we will during the committee stage.