The Cohen Commission's Ruling that the salmon-farm industry submit only one decade's worth of fish health data from its three-decade-long history in BC misses the mark for the onset of the Fraser River Sockeye decline by 8 years, 12 if one is interested in the 4-year life cycle of the fish that didn’t return in 1992.
To study how fish farms might have impacted the decline of Fraser sockeye, the Cohen Commission has sought pathogen and lice records from governments and the BC Salmon Farmers' Association (BCSFA) in three separate Rulings, most recently March 17th. Initially requiring only 5 years of fish health data from 2004-2009, Justice Cohen expanded his order to 10 years of data for 120 fish farms. The Commission still lacks what is needed to understand the 1992 onset of decline.
Acknowledging industry’s and governments’ difficulties providing data prior to 2000, Justice Cohen cites "evidence from the Province that it did not regulate the aquaculture industry until 2001, and that documents prior to 2000 have been destroyed".3:44 This is baffling: it is common knowledge that BC regulated aquaculture following the Memorandum of Agreement in 19887 until 2009. The 1991 report from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, & Food (MAFF) entitled Aquaculture Legislation in British Columbia: A Comparative Legal Analysis reveals “that aquaculture was far from being an unregulated activity in BC.”8 The destruction of fish farm health records from before 2000 raises serious questions regarding which records the Ministries of Environment and of Agriculture and Lands keep for only one decade.
It is essential to get the context right. Since Justice Hinkson ruled in February 20097 that the province’s jurisdiction over salmon farming from 1988 to 2009 was unconstitutional, it has become clear the entire development of this industry was basically illegal. The 80's and 90's were decades when government and industry relied on the assertion that “salmon farming in B.C. presented a low overall risk to the environment"5 to avoid regulation that would otherwise have applied. Today government and industry wish to be excused from providing farm data for those years precisely because industry was “unregulated”: Grieg Seafood’s affidavit to Justice Cohen: “there was no... comprehensive reporting scheme in place and no regulation saying what data had to be collected"3:48. If there was no particular reporting or regulation for lice or pathogens, on what basis was it determined there was a low risk to the environment?
The Commission has been persuaded by industry and government not to require records of fish farm data prior to 2000 on the basis that those records don’t exist or are too difficult to produce or there was no legal obligation to keep them.3:47 It is difficult not to conclude that Justice Cohen’s Rulings on these matters rely on evasive excuses of inconvenience: “records… if they even exist, are likely in paper format” or in out-dated computer media. “These records may also hold different types of information than that submitted to the current fish health databases.”3:48
Truly the Commission is contending with a vast quantity of evidence, including the most intricate histories on diverse policies for Pacific salmon over a minimum of three decades. Restricting concern for salmon feedlot evidence to a single decade can only weaken its findings. Without a broader reach, how can we know what “the topic’s place in the Inquiry”3:19:14 is?
Clearly the BCSFA and the Provincial and Federal governments would be happy with such a limited approach. However, the Commission needs to learn how fish farms and government departments recorded the 1992 IHN outbreak, and hear evidence about the conditions of farms throughout the industry’s 15 years of phenomenal growth promoted by DFO and the BC government before 2000.
The Commission’s Terms of Reference for investigating government, industry, and the decline of the Fraser Sockeye are so inextricably intertwined as to stymy understanding of how DFO, according to the Auditor General, had “inadequate monitoring and enforcement” 5 while the salmon feedlots were expanding unregulated for 15 unconstitutional years.
Anything that can be learned from the farms during this 15 year period ushering in the near collapse of Pacific salmon is relevant to the Commission’s Inquiry. If the BCSFA and our governments were sincerely interested in the outcomes of the Commission’s Inquiry, they would submit all records they happen to have prior to 2000, paper or otherwise.
In effect, we are witnessing a repeat of 1999. Justice Cohen could just as easily have been inquiring into the 15 years of problems prior to 1999 documented in major reports throughout the 90’s: “1999 - More than eight million sockeye (were) expected but only three million reached the Fraser, the lowest figure since 1955.”9 “Outbreaks of this disease (IHN) in Atlantic salmon farms in British Columbia occurred in 1992, 1995, 1996, 1997”10. The Auditor General reported in 1999 “that the Pacific salmon fisheries were in trouble. The long-term sustainability of the fisheries was at risk… the result was a fisheries management crisis that had cast a cloud of uncertainty over the future of the salmon fisheries.”6
The Cohen Commission is tasked with getting to the bottom of a very old story: one recent decade’s data on semi-regulated salmon feedlots that have confidential arrangements with governments regarding self-monitoring for pathogens and sea lice could just leave us perpetually wondering what went wrong.
Relevant documents:
1. Rule 18 of the commission’s rules of procedure and practice: http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/pdf/RulesForProcedureAndPractice.pdf
2. Oct 20, 2010 (6 p.) INTERIM RULING RE: R.19 APPLICATION FOR PRODUCTION OF AQUACULTURE RECORDS http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/pdf/InterimRulingReRule19Application.pdf#zoom=100
3. Dec 8, 2010 (22 p.) RULING RE: RULE 19 APPLICATION FOR PRODUCTION OF AQUACULTURE HEALTH RECORDS http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/pdf/Rule19Application.pdf#zoom=100 (reviews in detail the INTERIM ruling from p. 9 para 23 on)) para: 44;
4. March 17, 2010 (9 p.) RULING RE: CLARIFICATION OF DECEMBER 8, 2010 FINAL RULING PRODUCTION OF FISH HEALTH RECORDS http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/pdf/Rule19ClarificationRuling.pdf#zoom=100
5. 2000 December Report of the Auditor General of Canada: Chapter 30 – Fisheries and Oceans – The Effects of Salmon Farming in British Columbia on the Management of Wild Salmon Stocks http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/English/parl_oag_200012_30_e_11217.html “This was our third audit of the Department’s Pacific salmon management programs since 1997.”
6. 2004 Report of the Auditor General of Canada: (Chapter 5 - 2004 Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development)
7. Justice Hinkson’s Reasons for Judgement: Morton v. British Columbia (Agriculture and Lands) http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/jdb-txt/SC/09/01/2009BCSC0136err1.htm
8. Environmental Concerns: The Anti-Salmon Farming Lobby in British Columbia By David Conley, M.Sc. http://www.aquacomgroup.com/Page_sections/About_us/documents/Anti-salmon_Lobby-r.pdf
9. The Globe and Mail http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/decade/decade-news/bc-salmon-fisherys-decade-of-decline/article1405130/
10. B.C. Ministry of Agriculture, Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis Virus (IHNV) http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/ahc/fish_health/IHNV.htm
No comments:
Post a Comment