CP32-93-2012-3-eng.pdf

Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River • Volume 3
performance of Canada’s aquaculture industry. Of
that sum, $25 million is devoted to innovation to
enhance the aquaculture sector’s competitiveness
and productivity, and a further $10 million supports
the aquaculture sector’s ability to meet domestic
market demands along with rigorous international
trade and marketing requirements. 21
I understand the rationale behind the Government
of Canada promoting the salmon-farming
industry and its products or providing funds to
assist with that sector’s competitiveness. What does
concern me, however, is that, when one government
department (in this case DFO) has mandates
both to conserve wild stocks and to promote the
salmon-farming industry, there are circumstances
in which it may find itself in a conflict of interest
because of divided loyalties. For example:
• There is a risk that DFO will not proactively
examine potential threats to migrating sockeye
salmon from salmon farms, leaving it up to
other concerned parties to establish that there
is a threat.
• There is a risk that DFO will impose less onerous
fish health standards on salmon farms than it
would if its only interest were the protection of
wild fish. Farmed salmon may tolerate certain
diseases or pathogens differently from wild
salmon, such that the farmed fish would not
necessarily require treatment except for their
potential to spread disease or pathogens to
wild fish. (The treatment of sea lice is a good
example: see the discussion in Volume 1,
Chapter 9, Fish health management.)
• There is a risk that DFO will be less rigorous in
enforcing the Fisheries Act against the operators
of salmon farms.
I do not suggest that in every case DFO will favour
the interests of salmon farms over the interests
of wild fish; rather, it is the risk that it will do so
that creates the conflict of interest. Because of its
mandate to promote the salmon-farming industry,
there is a risk that DFO will act in a way that favours
the industry to the detriment of wild fish.
I recognize that, in relation to wild salmon
stocks, DFO’s mandate extends to promoting the
commercial fishery as well as conserving those
stocks. If that creates the potential for a conflict
of interest, it can be largely addressed by the
checks and balances I referred to in the section
above on DFO’s mandate in relation to wild fish.
DFO’s interest in promoting the wild fishery is
tempered by its duty to conserve those same wild
stocks: without a healthy resource, there can be
no commercial fishery to promote. Protecting wild
stocks while promoting salmon farms is, in my view,
qualitatively different because there are no inherent
checks and balances – promotion of salmon farms
might, in some circumstances, prejudice the health
of wild salmon stocks.
As long as DFO has a mandate to promote
salmon farming, there is a risk that DFO will act
in a manner that favours the interests of the
salmon-farming industry over the health of wild
fish stocks. The only way to address this potential
conflict is by removing from DFO’s mandate the
promotion of salmon farming as an industry and
farmed salmon as a product, and by transferring the
promotion of salmon farming to a different part of
the Executive Branch.
I draw no conclusion about whether the
Government of Canada as a whole should promote
the salmon-farming industry or farmed salmon as
a product. There may be meritorious reasons for
the federal government to do so. If it chooses to do
so, it is inevitable that conflicts will arise from time
to time between the protection of wild stocks and
the promotion of farmed salmon. In my view, when
those conflicts do arise, they ought to be dealt with
at the cabinet level.
DFO’s obligations in relation to net-pen
salmon farms
3 The Government of Canada should remove
from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’
mandate the promotion of salmon farming as
an industry and farmed salmon as a product.
Implementation of the
Wild Salmon Policy
When, in June 2005, after five years of development,
Minister Geoff Regan released the Wild
Salmon Policy (WSP), he stated that it “significantly
transforms the management and conservation
of wild salmon, their habitats and dependent
12