Anti-fish farm activists leave taxpayers with big bills

More often than not, when scientists debunk claims that fish farms are causing the decline of wild salmon stocks, their work is labelled as bought and paid for by the aquaculture industry.

The emotionally charged but fact-deficit anti-fish farm lobby, much of which is funded by foreign interests, also mounts campaigns to discredit the scientists who counter their claims.

The end result is taxpayers having to fork out tens of thousands of dollars to investigate false claims advanced by anti-fish farm activists.

This was the case with Gary Marty, the senior provincial fish pathologist at the Animal Health Centre in Abbotsford, whose published research has been branded by eco-activists as diminishing the seriousness of fish-farm diseases.

Marty, who has long been a target of the anti-fish farm groups, was discredited on CTV’s W5 last October when Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientist Kristi Miller accused him of potential conflict of interest because he had worked with a veterinarian from fish-farm company Marine Harvest on a report.

Miller, fuelled by the rhetoric of aquaculture opponents, then took her concerns directly to Agriculture Minister Lana Popham, whose anti-fish farm sentiments are well documented. The minister wasted no time in publicly casting aspersions on Marty.

Premier John Horgan ordered an independent review of the B.C. government scientific laboratory for its work on farmed fish. After a $100,000 review, the claims by Popham, Miller and the anti-fish farm militants were recently dismissed unequivocally.

Don Wright, deputy minister to the premier, who led the review said: “I am satisfied that the Animal Health Centre operates with strong professional, scientific and ethical integrity. My review process found no evidence of “dubious data or conflict of interest.” The centre, he said, is “an institution of which the public service can be proud.”

Deloitte, which conducted the review, concluded: “Our independent assessment of the (centre) did not identify any evidence of financial or technical conflict of interest regarding the diagnostic activities of the AHC.”

Deloitte said the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, as the industry regulator, performs a significant number of regular audits and inspections on all B.C. salmon farms. This rigour and frequency of audit does not exist for any other form of agricultural production.

When confronted with the findings, Popham blamed W5 for airing the accusations against Mar- ty and described the review as “a good news story in the end.” The $100,000 bill for taxpayers, she said, was “worthwhile spending.”

This is not the first time taxpayers had to foot the bill because of false claims against fish farming.

In 2011, anti-fish farm activist Alexandra Morton, who has faced several challenges of ethics breach from members of the Association of Professional Biology, published a paper entitled, Lethal Atlantic virus found in Pacific salmon. Her work, which triggered government reviews, was proven to be false. The lab that did the screening work for Morton was stripped of its international accreditation.

The B.C. government and Fisheries and Oceans Canada issued statements confirming that the reports were false. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans said, “because some have chosen to draw conclusions based on unconfirmed information, this has resulted in British Columbia’s fishing industry and Canada’s reputation being put at risk.”

In December, Morton and the discredited lab published another paper not supported by data. They said data showed the transfer of the piscine orthoreovirus (PRv) from farm salmon to wild salmon, with consequences to the latter. The paper was another example of a deliberate activist campaign that clouds the important work being done by renowned scientists in labs in Canada and around the world.

The bottom line after decades of research, including the findings by the Cohen Commission, is there is no science that states salmon farms kill wild stocks.

The debate around fish farming in B.C. is important and impacts the livelihoods of thousands of people. Taxpayer dollars should go toward improving the science around the industry and better monitoring of oceans resources, not on unwarranted reviews of anti-farm propaganda authored by discredited activists.