Canada ‘importing more salmon and exporting jobs’

It’s certain that BC farm closures have left a gap to be filled, says aquaculture spokesman Kennedy as value of farmed fish from Norway jumps by a third

New figures from Norway show that the Canadian government’s
closure of marine salmon farms in British Columbia over the last three years has
opened the door to increased exports from other countries, says Tim Kennedy, president
and chief executive of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA).

The value of farmed salmon exported by Norway to Canada
jumped by 35%, or around Can $11.2 million, to Can $42.8m in the first half of 2024
compared to the same period last year, statistics from the Norwegian Seafood
Council show.

That increase follows a fall in Canadian farmed salmon
production from a peak of 148,000 tonnes in 2016 to 90,000 tonnes in 2023, its
lowest level since 2000. The CAIA says the fall is primarily due to former
fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan’s 2020 decision not to renew licences for
19 farms in the Discovery Islands, BC.

Less home-grown product

Asked whether he believes that the BC farm closures have led to increased salmon imports for Canadian consumption and/or
export to the US, Kennedy said: “This is absolutely certain. We know that it is
increasingly difficult to find Canadian product in stores.

“Typically, about 30% of Canadian production stays in Canada
but now with much lower production this quantity cannot meet consumer demands.
This is the opposite of what Canadian consumers and retailers desire based on
polling and retail data as they say they want more Canadian product. Norwegian
and Chilean (and increasingly Scottish and Faroes) product is in Canadian
stores.”

Kennedy continued: “Fresh salmon continues to be the top
seafood choice of Canadians. If they can’t get it from Canada, they will
purchase foreign-sourced salmon. However, the carbon footprint is much larger –
we estimate that the loss of approximately 60,000 tonnes of product from
Canadian production equals adding about 84,000 cars to Canadian roads. And of
course, the jobs are not in Canada, but we are supporting other national
economies.”

Discovery Islands

Jordan announced her decision to close the Discovery Islands
farms on December 17, 2020 and gave the farms until June 2022 to finish growing
existing fish. She placed an immediate ban on transfers of smolts to the sites.

One of the affected farming companies, Mowi, won an
injunction against the transfer ban, but that was sidestepped by the Department
of Fisheries and Oceans, which changed the time limit for transfer
applications.

In April 2022, it was announced that Federal Court judge Elizabeth
Heneghan had ruled that Jordan breached procedural fairness when she announced
the closures via a press release, and also failed to provide reasons for her
decision. The judge ordered Jordan’s decision to be reversed, but the farms
remain closed.

In mid-June this year, the Canadian government said that
open net-pen salmon farming will be banned in BC from June 30, 2029, as part of
what it said was a responsible, realistic, and achievable plan to transition
the sector to closed containment.

Remaining open net-pen farms in BC were granted one-off five-year
licence renewals from July 1, 2024.