Wild BC Salmon Plan - Contact your MLA! - Updated Mar 26, 2020

Wild BC Salmon Plan – Prepared for John Horgan, Andrew Weaver, Lana Popham, Adam Olsen and Other Indigenous MLAs by DC Reid 

The government of BC has the following plan for bringing back wild Pacific salmon: 

1.     We are moving forward to save BC’s iconic Wild Pacific Salmon, threatened now on several fronts. We will fund the Pacific Salmon Foundation $150 million over ten years to undertake freshwater habitat restoration and to protect habitat from being damaged. We are asking the federal government to add the same amount of funding for the same purpose, making this the biggest positive plan for wild salmon ever undertaken in BC! Their current budget is $100 million.

2.     We will be setting up 12 net-pen operations for the next ten years, with 2 million sterilized, fin-clipped chinook fry each to feed southern resident killer whales. We will feed SRKWs with netted Nitinat chinook, delivered to pods and dropped in front of them from helicopter pens.

3.     We will set up net-pen operations in coastal First Nations to raise their own, local, sterilized, fin-clipped salmon.

4.     We will provide funding for our aboriginal brothers to remove Atlantic salmon and their fry from BC rivers.

5.     We propose that DFO curtail the herring roe fishery for the next decade.

6.     Yes, there is science on the problems with fish farms, but there are other issues: wild salmon are in crisis, climate change is getting worse, British Columbians by and large don’t like fish farms, our aboriginal brothers want their wild salmon back and farmed salmon out of the ocean. We are acting in accordance with British Columbian wishes and using the precautionary principle.

7.     In accordance with our plans, fish farms will be moved to land. Globally, the industry has been moving onto land for many years, including in Norway, where BC farms are from, and it is now time to do the same here. 

Norway stopped auctioning in-ocean licences in 2014 and now only grants, for free, on-land licences; this was a $9- to $12-million subsidy to set up on land. Since then, the in-ocean license has climbed to $32- to $40-million, with on-land at zero. We will offer the same subsidy in BC, a free license for on-land, and move immediately to the same price as Norway for in-ocean, until farms are on land.

Marine Harvest is investing $100 Million in closed containment, and the other companies also have their plans. It makes sense for Norwegian companies to spend in BC, on our much cheaper land, with cheaper labour than Norway, with their monetary policy inflated Krone that will buy more in BC, rather than go back to Norway and set up on land there.

8.     We will retrain workers who may be displaced by the move to land.

9.     We will set up a 20,000mt on-land fish farm, working with industry leader, Aqua Maof, and our aboriginal brothers at Kuterra; or the agreement will be with Whole Oceans who signed a 15 year agreement to operate this facility. And we will build others, for example, a 33,000mt facility with Atlantic Sapphire.

10.  Specifically, we’ll retire 33% of current leases each June for the next three years. We’re here to help in the transition to land. And with our lower costs, you’ll be contributing to the BC economy, without the damaging externalities of the old way of doing things. Aquaponics will be an extra revenue stream, and a wise use of fish waste.

11. Finally, we will help fish farm companies with $1M for any farm relocated on land in BC.

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Supporting Communication Phrases:

We’re here with a new plan for wild salmon.

We’re here to help you – with free licences.

We’re here for jobs - to move in a new direction.

We’re here for retraining - and moving British Columbia forward.

We stand for British Columbians who want fish farms removed – 113,000 citizens signed a petition in 2018 for moving farms to land. More recently this petition for our help has climbed to 200,000.

We stand for investment in BC – and moving this industry to land.

We stand for wild salmon – threatened now on several fronts.

We stand for wild salmon – we are asking the federal government to curtail the herring roe fishery for a minimum of 10 years.

We stand for the precautionary principle – wild salmon threatened now on several fronts and need to be fostered.

We want your industry to prosper – on land is the way forward, here and around the world.

We’ll be protecting wild salmon – by ridding our rivers of farmed salmon and their spawn, a costly outcome of farmed salmon escapes.

We stand for meaningful relations with First Nations – the UBCIC says 90% of FN want farmed salmon to be moved out of their and our ocean, and for wild salmon to be fostered.

We stand for jobs – why your own executives are jumping ship to the massive Atlantic Sapphire on-land plant in the USA. We want your jobs to continue, so getting on land is a must for you, or the new on-land USA firms will destroy your main market.

We don’t want to see the industry wither away because it is not on land. You will know that your own executives (Mowi) are already moving to AS. And, as you know, where you are from, Norway wants you on land, too. Everyone does.

We stand for jobs – and have a list of more than 300 on-land fish farms systems around the world, comprising 20,000 actual farms. So, we’re here to help you move forward.

We stand for jobs - fish farms have only 1800 jobs, and declined 5.3% in the past 20 years and we will have them transitioned quickly. 

We are bringing BC in line with our Pacific neighbours - Alaska and California forbid in-ocean farms, Oregon has none, and, as you know, Washington is in the process of removing fish farms from the ocean.

We hear what our municipal governments are saying - Sooke and Victoria are against fish farms. Victoria is taking the lead to have all BC cities ban fish farms.

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Four BC MLAs are Indigenous: Adam Olsen (Green), North Saanich and the Islands; Carol James (NDP), Victoria-Beacon Hill; Ellis Ross (Liberal), Skeena; and Melanie Mark (NDP), Vancouver-Mount Pleasant.

See: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2017/05/10/bc-indigenous-mlas-melanie-mark-carole-james-ellis-ross_n_16537802.html. 

Email Addresses: All MLA addresses have the same format:

John Horgan: john.horgan.mla@leg.bc.ca

Andrew Weaver: andrew.weaver.mla@leg.bc.ca

Lana Popham: lana.popham.MLA@leg.bc.ca

Carole James: carole.james.MLA@leg.bc.ca

Adam Olsen: adam.olsen.MLA@leg.bc.ca

Ellis Ross: ellis.ross.MLA@leg.bc.ca

Melanie Mark: melanie.mark.mla@leg.bc.ca

Final Note: In a chinook netpen, the fry are put in a pen in saltwater, fed for three weeks and then released to carry on with their lives. They return to the site of the pen as adult fish, rather than into a river. In the case of chinook, they can provide a fishery in their second to seventh year, depending on whether the chinook nurse in a near shore area, and on how many years the stock from which they are chosen typically lives before returning as an adult fish.