Aquaculture projects offer 'huge' opportunity
Robert Barron / Daily News, March 27, 2014
Aquaculture projects along B.C.'s coasts and across Canada provide "huge opportunities" for employment and economic growth, according to Senator Nancy Greene Raine.
Greene Raine is a member of the federal Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans that is undertaking a study on the regulation of aquaculture in Canada, and the opportunities and challenges for the sector.
She said B.C. is unique in national discussions concerning the aquaculture industry in that the issue has become "polarized" between those who are against it and the industry itself.
"It's the citizens of this province that are caught in the middle," Greene Raine said in Nanaimo on Wednesday where the latest round of hearings were held.
"I believe we should be growing fish and that it can be done sustainably. At the end of the day, there is no solid evidence that salmon farms here impact wild salmon stocks."
The hearings in Nanaimo are the last that are to be held on Vancouver Island after the committee visited Tofino, Campbell River and Baynes Sound to gather input into the issue. Greene Raine said the committee hopes to complete a final report for the government's consideration by June of 2015. In 2010, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled that the province does not have the right to regulate B.C.'s salmon farms because the fish inside the farms are a fishery, not agriculture as stated by the province, so the federal government has exclusive right to regulate them.
The committee is tasked to develop a regulatory regime for the industry under the auspices of DFO. The B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, which represents the industry, maintains that the province's salmon farming industry currently contributes $800 million to the provincial economy and it could grow to $1.4 billion by 2020, resulting in 8,000 total jobs.
By 2035, it could reach $3.5 billion and 20,000 jobs.
Association executive director Jeremy Dunn told the committee all the sector needs is legislation that "better speaks" to the work of the province's ocean farmers.
"An Aquaculture Act for Canada. .. will define aquaculture in federal law and provide a unifying, long-term framework that recognizes aquaculture's growing importance to Canada's economy."
To read more about the Senate Committee and BC Aquaculture
http://www.farmfreshsalmon.org/new-jobs-created-stronger-rules-say-bc%E2...
