THE ISSUE

There are widespread concerns about the effect of fish farming on wild salmon populations. In particular, critics charge that sea lice infestations in open-cage fish farms result in significant mortality in young wild salmon that pass close to the pens.

Of course, It's complicated

The science is uncertain. The NDP imposed a moratorium on new fish farms while risks and benefits were assessed. The Liberals lifted that moratorium.

The bottom line

The federal and B.C.governments subsidize the fish farming industry by underwriting scientific research, indemnifying fish farms against losses from disease, and leasing public sites to fish farms for just a few thousand dollars. Are these subsidies appropriate? Would your government permit new open-cage salmon farms?

THE ANSWERS

Green Party of BC

There is nothing complicated about this one, particularly since the science is quite certain. A recent study by scientists of the Universities of Victoria and Alberta found a 30,000-fold increase in sea lice infestation on wild stock solely arising from contaminated fish farms. These lice attach to young salmon with fatal consequences. Attempts by the farms to control sea lice use neurotoxins that can poison other sea life. The feed used for farmed salmon contains other toxins that end up in the ocean. Farmed fish escape and compete with wild stock for habitat. A Green government would rapidly close offshore fish farms and prevent their reintroduction. A transition period, in which companies would use impermeable containment "envelopes," may be allowed, but the end result if we form government will be a complete ban on ocean-based fish farms in B.C. The farmed salmon industry may not like this answer. We don't care. Move your pollution-generating farms to somewhere else. We don't plan to sit idly by while you destroy our wild salmon as you've already done in Norway and Ireland.

Democratic Reform BC

All governments support farming, commercial fishing and other food production industries with research, crop insurance, "buy backs," management costs and tax incentives. Many of these "subsidies" are justified and many are not - this could be debated at length. However, salmon-farming research allows us to evaluate the risks based on science, not rhetoric from either the pro- or anti-salmon farming lobbies. DRBC believes the public would demand this research continue. Until the science of issues such as sea lice infestation of wild smolts is definitive, DRBC would not allow new salmon farm sites. Where farms are located on sub-optimum sites, based on demonstrated sea-lice risk or other acute environmental constraints, DRBC would immediately find temporary alternate sites to replace them or determine some means of compensation or other justifiable resolution to protect wild stocks and the environment. Ian Bruce, Saanich North and the Islands, Environment and Fisheries Critic, 250-656-9414 idbruce@shaw.ca

NDP

The NDP platform states that it will restore the moratorium on "open-net fish farms." The platform is not explicit on whether existing farms would be permitted to expand, or whether existing sites that are problematic would be moved. The party promises "a safer, more sustainable aquaculture industry based on emerging 'closed containment' technologies that cut pollution and the escape of Atlantic salmon." Tax incentives would facilitate the move to closed containment.

BC Liberals

The platform makes scant mention of salmon farming, except to claim that government rules reduced "fish farm escapes from 68,000 fish in 2000 to only 40 in 2003." The platform credits the government with establishing the federal/provincial "Pacific Salmon Forum to improve fisheries and aquaculture management with independent science-based solutions" and notes the province is investing "$5.1 million in new aquaculture research."