Too many illogical fallacies
by Grant Warkentin, Courier-Islander, May 20, 2011
Ray Grigg's latest unbalanced rant against salmon farming is full of too many logical fallacies to fully address in a letter to the editor. I hope his readers take the time to exercise their critical thinking skills and research the industry for themselves, instead of taking his word as gospel.
However, he makes a few points I must address because they are so wrong and misleading that for Mr. Grigg to be left unchallenged would be irresponsible.
First, his argument that "DFO was fined in one incident for failing to protect orca habitat; in another incident the government is defending itself in a class action lawsuit; therefore DFO must be failing to protect all salmon habitat; therefore the salmon farming industry and DFO are in nefarious cahoots" is completely illogical.
DFO regulates the industry. The industry follows the rules, and in many cases, goes above and beyond what is required by government by attaining third-party ISO certifications, working with environmental groups and developing protocol agreements with First Nations.
Second, Mr. Grigg parrots the scientifically baseless suggestion that a "mutated form of Infectious Salmon Anemia" might be in B.C. This is irresponsible speculative rhetoric he repeats which does nothing other than make the industry sound scary, and to try and cover salmon farmers in a cloud of fear, uncertainty and doubt. As salmon farmers have pointed out many times, there is no ISA here; the disease is catastrophic for Atlantic salmon, so of course farmers are always looking for it; and again, there is no ISA here.
Finally, Mr. Grigg claims to want to see a scientific solution. We agree. The solution will include all the independent studies and research which Mr. Grigg chooses to ignore, and which show that salmon farming is not killing wild salmon, and that wild salmon runs were fluctuating long before salmon farms came along. If Mr. Grigg wants to exercise the precautionary principle so much, perhaps he should stop encouraging his readers to focus on salmon farming as the source of all evil. That's myopic and could actually harm wild salmon in the long run by wasting time that could be spent on real, productive science and discussion about the many factors affecting fish in our ocean.
I end by inviting Mr. Grigg to come see a salmon farm for himself. As far as I know, he has never been on one, yet continues to attack the industry. He is entitled to his opinion, but perhaps he should at least try and inform himself before he composes yet another illogical and baseless column.
Grant Warkentin Communications Officer,
Mainstream Canada
