Fish-farming company Cermaq Canada has gone to federal court to challenge the denial of a transfer permit that would have permitted it to grow young Atlantic salmon in two farms in the Discovery Islands.
The move is part of a battle between salmon-farm operators in B.C. and Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan, who announced last year that all fish farms must be closed by the end of June 2022 in the Discovery Islands, between Campbell River and the mainland.
In response, fish farms have turned to the federal court, asking to be allowed to grow out their young salmon in farm pens.
This month, Cermaq was turned down by the federal government in its bid for a transfer licence to move nearly 1.5 million salmon from its Cecil Island fish farm to farms at Venture Point and Brent Island in the Discovery Islands. It also sought an extension to keep operating at those farms until early 2023. But that request would have exceeded the federal deadline. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans rejected the application.
Mowi, another major operator in the Discovery Islands, was also earlier denied a transfer licence, leading it to euthanize close to one million juvenile salmon.
David Kiemele, Cermaq Canada managing director, said in a Thursday statement that the company opted “after much careful consideration” to take legal action to challenge the denial of the Brent Island and Venture Point transfer applications and licence extensions.
Without transfer approval, the company will not be able to carry out “the humane grow out” of a final cycle of fish at each of the farms, as planned, Kiemele said.
Federal court documents show a hearing is set for June 28 in Ottawa for an “interlocutory” or interim injunction involving the fish farm companies and the federal government.
A judicial review is scheduled in federal court in Vancouver for Oct. 18.
Fish farm critic and biologist Alexandra Morton backs Jordan’s decision to shut down fish farms in the Discovery Islands, calling it “the single most significant decision to protect wild salmon in the history of Canada.”
Research has found that sea lice “profoundly impact young sockeye” and a bacteria causing mouth rot in salmon farms is spreading to wild salmon, she said.
Morton is urging fish farms to operate out of land-based tanks, rather than in open-net pens in the ocean, in order to protect wild stocks.
— with file from Nelson Bennett, Business in Vancouver.
