Alexandra Morton
Thursday, December 12, 2013
Senate To Probe Fish Farms
The Senate is commissioning an 18-month study of fish farming amid industry complaints a “patchwork” of regulations is hurting the trade.
Senators voted to conduct a national probe of aquaculture of all seafood and fish species currently regulated by the Fisheries Act.
“We have heard from the industry they want a separate, stand-alone Aquaculture Act and there is some merit in that,” said Senator David Wells of Newfoundland & Labrador, a Conservative delegate to the Senate fisheries committee.
“We know the aquaculture industry does answer to a number of departments – fisheries, agriculture, Health Canada – and there’s merit in considering whether to streamline those regulations,” Wells said in an interview. “Regulation is an evolving science.”
A motion passed by the Senate would see the fisheries committee “examine and report on the regulation of aquaculture, current challenges and future prospects”, with a final report due by June 30, 2015.
The vote came as an industry group, the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, blamed ad hoc regulations for stagnant sales.
“It is a farming industry; we’re not fishing,” said Ruth Salmon, executive director; “We happen to do it in the water but the activity is the same thing as any other terrestrial farming.”
Salmon, testifying before the Commons agriculture committee, estimated Canada’s share of the global farmed fish market has fallen 40 percent over the past decade: “Canada only now accounts for 0.2 percent of global aquaculture production and this stagnation has taken place while other producers in New Zealand, Norway, Scotland and Chile have raced ahead.”
“Why have we flat-lined?” Salmon continued. “The principle challenge confronting our sector is the complicated set of regulations that restrict growth and limit investment”; “As a result of this patchwork approach, many of these policies and regulations are reactive and inefficient. Together they create an overarching policy framework that retards competitiveness, obscures certainty and stall growth.”
Fish and seafood farming is worth $2.1 billion annually with a payroll of 14,500 nationwide, by industry estimate.
MP Mark Eyking, a former Liberal parliamentary secretary for trade, told the committee he knew of constituents who faced difficulty in importing oyster seed from the United States due to conflicting regulations.
“It’s been just brutal, the regulations,” said Eyking, MP for Sydney-Victoria, N.S.; “It just doesn’t seem like the government is changing”; “It’s stuck in this rut with old regulations from way back.”
The Fisheries Act dates from Confederation-era legislation
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