ELECTION 2015: The candidates’ responses to questions on aquaculture, economy, health care
Campbell River Mirror, Alistair Taylor/Campbell River Mirror, Oct. 13, 2015
How do you feel aquaculture will be part of food production in the future?
Rachel Blaney (NDP): Thank you for the question. You know I’ve travelled around the riding and there’s a lot of innovative and amazing things happening with aquaculture. Food security is going to be huge issue. We know what is happening with climate change, so, yes, we see it as definitely part of food production in the future. Research has been started already in Canada and the federal government has paid into amazing projects around closed containment. I know I was just up in Namgis and talking about what they’re doing and some of their innovative ideas around closed containment as a long term strategy. We know that we have to work hard with industry and I’m looking forward to doing so. Thank you.
Brenda Sayers (Green party): We support the recommendation of the Cohen Commission for a moratorium on no new pen fish farms. We believe they must be moved out of the water. DFO has had sufficient funding to determine the effects of stocks and habitats. Until then we operate on a precautionary principle. If there is a chance that harm is being done by the using antibiotics, they must be moved out of the water. We support the shellfish aquaculture because of the minimal impact on the system. And we know that climate change has a lot to with have a negative serious effect on the ecosystem. Thank you.
Peter Schwarzhoff (Liberal Party): Shellfish is included under aquaculture and that’s an industry we support although I’m very much worried about ocean acidification caused by climate change. But the problem we’re talking with salmon farming we have high hopes for the Kuterra closed containment we really hope that works but it will never be able to provide the protein that’s needed by the world. The demand for salmon is huge. Now we also have said we will adopt the recommendations of the Cohen Commission which specifically state that we need to prove that open net farming is safe for wild stocks by 2020 or we need to be out of the water. DFO responded to that challenge unfortunate because they lost their government science capacity by hiring industry to do the work. Now that industry seems to be showing that it’s safe but nobody trusts them because it’s done by industry. We will refund DFO to make sure they can do that work. We’ve got $40 million for a budget to make sure DFO tells us it’s going to be safe and we can trust DFO.
Laura Smith (Conservative Party): Yes, food security is an issue and there’s a huge and growing demand for food in the world particularly high protein food and aquaculture products have a very efficient ratio of protein to protein out so it’s a very important way to meet this growing demand and we have a great ability to do our part for filling that need. But I would point out that with closed containment our government has made some investments in the research but the jury’s still out. We’re open to that but if we’re looking for that to create jobs in the North Island, if you can grow salmon on the land you’re going to be growing it in Vancouver not here. So when it comes to jobs, we want to make sure we’re taking maximum availability of our great workers and resources. Thank-you.
