Tag Archives: First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance

Opinion, Rivers & Oceans

Alexandra Morton: Open Letter to Strathcona Regional District Board

Editor’s note: The transcript that Alexandra Morton refers to, in the following open letter, is actually the transcript of my January 27 radio program. While extremely quote heavy, it is highly edited, considerably shorter, and not a word for word transcript of the meeting.

To the Strathcona Regional District Board,

I read the January 25, 2023, transcript of your Members’ Report on the Open Net Pen Transition. Thank you for the care and thought you are putting into this.  The statement that logging, tourism and fish farming are critical to Campbell River’s existence must be a serious concern given all of these are facing challenges.

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Rivers & Oceans

‘Writing on the wall’ for West Coast fish farms, conservationists say

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Open net-pen fish farming on the Pacific coast took a one-two punch after operations closures were announced in both B.C. and Washington state this week. 

The shíshálh Nation said Wednesday that aquaculture giant Grieg Seafood is removing salmon farms from the nation’s waters along B.C.’s Sunshine Coast by February 2023. Meanwhile, on Monday, Washington state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR) said it’s not renewing Atlantic Canada’s Cooke Seafood’s last two open-net pen leases in Puget Sound and farm operations will end by Dec. 14. 

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Rivers & Oceans

Waiting for DFO to decide the fate of open-net pen fish farms

Sometime in the next three weeks, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, Joyce Murray, will decide whether the licenses for 79 fish farms will be renewed. 

“I heard a rumour that the minister laid out her options or her ideas to cabinet and cabinet has the plans right now. They’re  figuring out what to do. We can expect an announcement quite shortly on the plan around the transition of farms out of British Columbia and also the licensing decision,” said Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

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Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance calls DFO a ‘captured regulator’ of the fish farm industry

(Click here to access other presentations taken from the Committee.)

One hundred and two British Columbian First Nations are calling for fish farms to move onto land. The Klahoose, Tla’amin, Homalco and K’omox First Nations are among them. On May 12, Chief Bob Chamberlain, Chair of the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance, told Parliament’s Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans that DFO is a captured regulator of the fish farm industry 

Chamberlain began by addressing the committee in his native tongue.

This is a transcript of the rest of his opening presentation.

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Rivers & Oceans

Court ruling doesn’t sink Ottawa’s decision to close Discovery Islands salmon farms, critics say

Click here for ‘Federal court rules DFO breached salmon farmers rights to procedural fairness’

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

West Coast environmental groups and First Nations opposed to salmon farming are urging the federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray to hold the line after a recent court ruling set aside a decision by her predecessor to phase out salmon farming in the Discovery Islands. 

The Federal Court ruling found then-fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan contravened the right of procedural fairness owed to fish farm companies when deciding to shut down 19 operations in the waters near Campbell River on eastern Vancouver Island by the end of June. 

Continue reading Court ruling doesn’t sink Ottawa’s decision to close Discovery Islands salmon farms, critics say →