Saving Seafood

In wake of Canada election, report of BC net pen industry demise may be exaggerated

October 23, 2019 — Following the Justin Trudeau-led Liberal Party’s victory in Canada’s election Monday night, the Atlantic salmon aquaculture industry in the province of British Columbia (BC) might like to quote the celebrated American author Mark Twain.

“The report of my death was an exaggeration,” Twain quipped in 1879, at age 44, when cabled about rumors that persisted while he was traveling in London. He lived another 31 years.

The results are still being tallied but the Liberal Party seems poised to make several big changes to the Canadian seafood industry after taking a projected 157 of the legislature’s 338 seats, compared to the Progressive Conservative Party’s 121 seats, Bloc Quebecois’ 32 seats, National Democratic Party’s 24 seats and Green Party’s seven seats.

To pass any legislation in the House, the Liberals will need a full 170 votes, but many of the seafood-related pledges they made in their 85-page platform announced on Sept. 29 are a match with those made by the NDPs.

Read the full story at Undercurrent News

Trudeau, Liberals returning to power, with uncertain consequences for Canadian aquaculture, fisheries

October 22, 2019 — Canada’s Liberal Party and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have won national elections that saw them lose their majority, but retain enough support to return to power with a minority government.

The outcome may have significant repercussions for Canada’s fishing and aquaculture sectors, as the Liberal Party platform called for both more marine protected areas and a shift away from net-pen farming to land-based systems.

Read the full story at Seafood Source

Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance CEO: Banning BC salmon farms will drive farming to other nations

October 1, 2019 — Representatives of Canada’s salmon farming industry are hitting back hard at plans unveiled in the recently released Liberal party platform headed by incumbent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to transition salmon farming in British Columbia from ocean netpen farms to land-based operations.

The Liberal platform has potentially serious and far-reaching negative consequences for Canadian jobs and the environment, said the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA), which represents the interests of Canada’s aquaculture producers.

“This is a reckless policy, not grounded in science, and it will threaten good middle-class jobs across Canada,” says Timothy Kennedy, CAIA president and CEO.

If implemented, Kennedy added, farmed salmon production would simply be driven to other countries, undercutting efforts the industry has made to improve sustainability.

Read the full story at IntraFish

For Marine Life, New Threats from a Fast-Tracked Canadian Pipeline

August 2, 2018 — Nearly everyone involved in the controversy over Canada’s troubled Trans Mountain Pipeline was surprised when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced in May that his government would take over the construction from a private company to ensure that additional tar sands crude oil can move from northern Alberta to a port in British Columbia.

The 715-mile Trans Mountain pipeline expansion would add a parallel pipeline to an existing one, increasing the route’s capacity from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day and helping producers sell crude and refined oil to Asian markets. Trudeau’s action means that a pipeline many thought might never be built is now on a fast track to completion by 2020. Construction is scheduled to begin this month.

The expansion of the Trans Mountain pipeline poses a range of environmental impacts and risks — from the possibility of leaks as the new line crosses hundreds of streams, rivers, and lakes across the breadth of the British Columbia wilderness, to the fact that it will allow Alberta’s massive tar sands reserves to be further exploited and contribute large amounts of CO2 to the atmosphere. But the most immediate and serious impacts may be to the marine environment along the coast of British Columbia, where the pipeline would terminate at the Westridge Marine Terminal at Burnaby near Vancouver.

The pipeline is expected to lead to a sharp increase in oil tanker traffic in the Salish Sea — a network of inland ocean waterways shared by British Columbia and Washington State — from four tankers a month to 34, along with associated construction and other ship  traffic. Marine biologists are especially concerned about the impact of increased ship noise on a highly endangered population of 75 killer whales, known as the “southern residents,” shared by the two countries.

Read the full story at Yale Environment 360

US border patrol boat strayed into Canadian waters chasing migrants: fishermen

July 5, 2018 — A US border patrol boat strayed into Canadian territorial waters while chasing “illegal immigrants” off the coast of Maine and Nova Scotia, Canadian fishermen said Wednesday.

Laurence Cook, chair of the Grand Manan Fishermen’s Association, said on Facebook that a US border patrol launch out of Maine attempted to stop a Canadian fishing vessel in Canadian waters.

Grand Manan is a Canadian island in the Gulf of Maine, right off the coast that hosts the border between the United States and Canada.

Cook said the incident took place on June 24 near Machias Seal Island, a tiny and rocky outcrop a dozen miles (kilometers) south of Grand Manan with rich lobster grounds, and whose sovereignty is disputed by Washington, although the Canadian Coast Guard maintains a lighthouse there.

According to Cook, the Canadian fishing captain, Nick Brown, informed the US vessel that “he was a Canadian vessel legally fishing in Canadian waters.”

“Typical American bullies,” said Cook, who said he was “not surprised to see the Americans trying to push people around.”

Ties between Canada and the United States have been strained since President Donald Trump slapped tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, citing US national security, with Trump calling Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “very dishonest” and “weak” after a spat at the G7 meeting in Quebec last month.

Read the full story from the Agence France-Presse at Yahoo.com

President Obama bans oil drilling in large areas of Atlantic and Arctic oceans

December 21st, 2016 — President Obama moved to solidify his environmental legacy Tuesday by withdrawing hundreds of millions of acres of federally owned land in the Arctic and Atlantic Ocean from new offshore oil and gas drilling.

Obama used a little-known law called the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to protect large portions of the Chukchi and Beaufort seas in the Arctic and a string of canyons in the Atlantic stretching from Massachusetts to Virginia. In addition to a five-year moratorium already in place in the Atlantic, removing the canyons from drilling puts much of the eastern seaboard off limits to oil exploration even if companies develop plans to operate around them.

The announcement by the White House late in the afternoon was coordinated with similar steps being taken by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to shield large areas of that nation’s Arctic waters from drilling. Neither measure affects leases already held by oil and gas companies and drilling activity in state waters.

“These actions, and Canada’s parallel actions, protect a sensitive and unique ecosystem that is unlike any other region on earth,” the White House said in a statement. “They reflect the scientific assessment that, even with the high safety standards that both our countries have put in place, the risks of an oil spill in this region are significant and our ability to clean up from a spill in the region’s harsh conditions is limited.

White House officials described their actions to make the areas off limits to future oil and gas exploration and drilling as indefinite. Officials said the withdrawals under Section 12-A of the 1953 act used by presidents dating to Dwight Eisenhower cannot be undone by an incoming president. It is not clear if a Republican-controlled Congress can rescind Obama’s action.

Read the full story at The Washington Post