Raise BC Fish Farm License to $32 Million - Save Wild Salmon

Hi John et al [Adam Olsen, John Horgan, Lana Popham, Andrew Weaver, Sonia Furstenau]

In Norway, the big companies are spending $32- to $40-million for a license.

Do you know what the big companies pay in BC? $5000. In other words, they are not investing in BC, they are raping BC.

You need to include in your fish farm policies a drastic increase in license fees. Charging the same as in Norway would bring in for the 120 licenses the industry claims it now has in BC: $32 X 120 = $3.8 Billion to $40 X 120 = $4.8 Billion. That is how much BC is subsidizing fish farms to ruin our oceans.

Raise the license to $32 million and Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg Seafood would pay it because they are doing so in their own country, Norway. And $32M is a bargain rate for them.

See: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/03/bad-news-bites.html. Item 393.

“393. Huge License Costs - Norway:  http://salmonbusiness.com/have-the-salmon-auction-winners-paid-too-high-a-price-for-the-gold/. "“Adding a minimum price of NOK 120 (€ 12.7) million per license is incomprehensible. In areas with the highest dominance of listed companies, the real price can quickly reach between NOK 200-250 (€ 21-26) million per license. You don’t have to be a mathematician to figure out that this is a gratuitous fit for only a handful of the major publicly listed companies,” NSL Managing Director Robert Eriksson said."

At an exchange rate of a Norwegian Krone equaling .16 of a dollar, the license cost in CDN dollars is: 120 X .16 = S19.2 million; 200 X .16 = $32 million, and 250 X .16 = $40 million.

Put the $3.8 B into freshwater habitat restoration for wild salmon.

DC Reid