Key Document: Slaughter Payments to Fish Farms - Jan 16, 2014

This link takes you to the Telegram newspaper that reports $33 Million of taxpayer money given to fish farms in Atlantic Canada by the federal government for slaughtered diseased fish farm fish: http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2014-01-11/article-3571724/N.L.%26rsquo%3Bs-destroyed-salmon-tab%3A-%2433M/1.

I now have some figures that I accept on slaughter fish payments of taxpayer dollars in BC and Grant Wartkentin and Cermaq Mainstream, Marine Harvest and Grieg Seafood may be happy to hear I will eat some crow here, as the BC figures are lower, much lower than my estimate.

The reason for having to make an estimate is that fish farms regularly refuse to let the public know how much taxpayer money they receive for diseased fish that foul our pristine oceans. And behind the scenes, they regularly have their lawyers keeping such numbers, and in the BC case, the disease records for testing of their farms, from the public, as happened during the Cohen Commission, and in this case, getting information from government.

And in this case, it was precisely that, a fish farm legal injunction that made my request wait 10 months before the millions of taxpayer dollars were put in a table and sent to me. My estimate of $35 million in BC is incorrect. The payments to Cermaq Mainstream's IHN diseased Clayoquot Sound farmed salmon are: $2.64 Million for 959,498 diseased salmon (paid in Nov 2012); and, $201,000 for infected equipment and supplies (paid in Jan 2013). The total is $2.8 Million, or $3 per fish, not $30 per fish.

What has not made the news is that the Grieg Seafood open net operation in Sechelt also received payment for slaughtered IHN diseased fish: $1.61 Million for 312,032 diseased salmon (Nov 2012); and, $152,000 for infected equipment and supplies (2013), or $5.60 per diseased salmon.

And here's the bottom line. In the past year or so, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency paid fish farms a total of $30.6 Million of taxpayer dollars for diseased slaughtered fish farm fish. That's pretty close to the $35 Million estimate and I don't think any taxpayer wants to pay a single dollar for these diseased fish, particularly when diseases become a thing of the past when the fish are raised on-land in closed containers with recirculating systems. The old-tech dinosaur operations need to move to land.

I will get back to you with more when I have had a chat with the Telegram. Stay tuned.