First Nations stand firm on fish farms
Agriculture minister’s recent comments cause for optimism, protesters say
First Nations seeking the removal of ocean-based salmon farms in their traditional territories are in no mood for compromise and now they appear to have the support of the new B.C. government.
“I’ve spoken with (Agriculture Minister Lana Popham) and I’m very encouraged by the language she is using now,” said Chief Ernest Alfred, spokesman for the protesters who have been camped near salmon farms at Swanson Island and Midsummer Island since August.
“Other First Nations have signed agreements with these companies, but we have never done that,” he said.
“They have the financial wherewithal to get out.”
In response to Marine Harvest’s plans to restock the Port Elizabeth salmon farm, Popham sent a letter to the aquaculture firm warning that the province retains the right to end the company’s tenures in the Broughton Archipelago when the terms expire in June.
The new NDP government is committed to implementing the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People (UNDRIP), she wrote.
“Practically, this means that companies should make every effort to develop and maintain healthy relationships with First Nations in whose territories companies are doing business,” she wrote.
That is going to be a challenge. Alfred says there is little room for compromise and that the removal of farms in the Broughton Archipelago owned by Cermaq and Marine Harvest is the only acceptable outcome.
The change in the government’s rhetoric is “concerning,” said Jeremy Dunn, executive director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association.
“Marine Harvest and Cermaq have been trying to have progressive dialogue with First Nations in the area for decades and have not been successful, unlike every other operating area on the coast,” he said.
If First Nations are successful in ending the farms’ tenures claiming a lack of consent (required by UNDRIP), it could place a chill on investment in aquaculture and other sectors, he said.
“It looks now like a business hoping to set up in B.C. needs First Nations involvement before you even go through provincial or federal permitting or processes,” said Dunn.
Popham disagreed.
“Free, prior and informed consent means consultation, but it doesn’t mean a veto (for First Nations),” Popham told The Vancouver Sun. “We are looking forward to making that consultation process government to government and we are looking for a starting point.”
Premier John Horgan and Popham led a delegation last week to Alert Bay to hear the First Nations leaders talk about their issues with the ocean-based aquaculture industry.
“At that meeting we promised to continue negotiations while we work forward,” she said. “We have also made a commitment to implement the recommendations of the Cohen Commission and that could affect farms in the Broughton Archipelago.”
While the commission could not point to a single “smoking gun” for the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye run, Justice Bruce Cohen did note that ocean-based farms on sockeye migration routes have the potential to cause harm.
Popham is organizing a meeting between industry officials, provincial and federal officials and leaders from First Nations, including the Namgis and Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw.
Such a meeting has potential for drama.
DFO, Marine Harvest and Cermaq are currently fighting a legal action brought by fish-farm opponent biologist Alexandra Morton, who alleges that the federal government is breaking the law by failing to test Atlantic salmon for piscine reovirus before they are placed in ocean-based pens.
First Nations are also asking the government to fire provincial fish pathologist Dr. Gary Marty, who has refuted claims that fish farms pose a significant risk to wild salmon.
In a 2015 report, Marty found that diseases in B.C.-farmed Atlantic salmon “pose no more than a minimal risk of serious harm to the health of migrating wild salmon” and that less than one per cent of Atlantic salmon die of diseases that might be infectious to wild Pacific salmon.
Popham confirmed the government is investigating Marty’s research at the request of First Nations.
The New Democrats are now accusing their critics of “fearmongering ” over Agriculture Minister Lana Popham’s veiled threat to cancel the tenures of one of B.C.’s big fish farming operators.
“You know what is not good for business?” Popham challenged Thursday in responding to a question from the B.C. Liberals. “The fearmongering from that side of the chamber.”
The question about the impact on business was provoked by Popham’s letter last week to Marine Harvest Canada, operator of 11 fish farms on the West Coast.
The minister suggested the company postpone restocking one of its salmon farming operations in an area that is a target of First Nations protests over raising fish in open-net pens.
She further advised the company of its obligations to respect the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, now that the New Democrats have endorsed it.
Lastly, Popham put the company on notice that the province reserves the right to take back the company’s tenures when they expire next June.
Thus, the fear that the New Democrats would cancel fish farming tenures was grounded in a reading of a letter signed, sealed and delivered on behalf of the agriculture minister herself.
Despite the chilling tone, Popham insisted the letter was nothing like a warm-up for an eviction notice.
“These tenures aren’t being cancelled,” she assured the legislature. “They are coming up on a review of a renewal process that’s part of normal business practice.”
She also maintained the main motivation for the letter was a concern never mentioned in the text, that New Democrats “will do everything that we can to protect the health of wild salmon.”
Even allowing for that concern, the minister’s written approach to the company was anything but normal or routine.
A low-key letter asking Marine Harvest to put off restocking the fish farm for a specified period would have sufficed. No links to more contentious policy issues, no threats. The deputy minister could have drafted and signed the letter, isolating it from the political realm.
Instead, she advised the company to live up to its obligations under her reading of the 46 principles of the UN declaration.
Never mind that the premier himself said this week the issue with the fish farm predated the NDP adoption of the UN declaration by decades.
Popham then brought up the matter of the tenures, pretty much hinting the company’s ability to go on operating in these waters was tied to its willingness to toe the line.
The tenures do not fall within the bailiwick of Popham’s Ministry of Agriculture, a point she acknowledged only in passing. The review and renewal is up to the Ministry of Forest, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
Moreover, the matter is supposed to be handled by a statutory decision-maker, meaning a professional public servant, guided by existing law, regulations and policies. The judgment cannot be capricious. Politics is not supposed to enter into it.
For all the NDP’s newfound enthusiasm for the United Nations declaration, it is a political commitment, not incorporated in existing provincial statutes and regulations.
But in the event the New Democrats do cancel the fish farm tenures, Popham’s letter could open up the government to legal action. The company could go to court and argue it was evicted for political reasons, not any failure to respect provincial laws and regulations.
Against that backdrop, Premier John Horgan weighed in on the Popham letter during question period Thursday in his capacity of — as one of the B.C. Liberals put it — minister of defence.
He began by quoting from a two-year-old press release where the then-B.C. Liberal government announced it would review aquaculture tenures to ensure they were properly sited and compatible with the wild salmon fishery.
“What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander,” the premier said. Fair game to remind the Liberals of their record in government — Lord knows the Libs made enough references to the NDP record during the 1990s.
But NDP researchers were unable to arm Horgan with a quote where the Liberals had threatened to cancel tenures over failure to live up to a political declaration like the UN document. Nor was there any overlooking how the Marine Harvest threat has raised fears about the fate of other provincially-awarded tenures for the use of land and resources.
There are some 60,000 of those. They range from big-ticket natural resource tenures for mining, forestry and natural gas, to small-fry recreational uses, according to a 2010 report from the Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
Given the aggressive tone of the Popham letter, holders of some of those tenures might be wondering how long before they get a pre-eviction notice from the NDP.
Not to worry, the premier insisted, as he joined Popham in going on the attack against the B.C. Liberals.
“My advice to those on the other side: get comfortable, enjoy your time in opposition, but don’t fearmonger,” he said. “No licences are being revoked. No tenures are being lifted.”
Not yet anyway — but the fear is out there, and it may take more than bluster on the floor of the legislature to dispel suspicions that Popham’s only sin, in the eyes of the premier, was to put the threat in writing.
Popham then brought up the matter of the tenures, pretty much hinting the company’s ability to go on operating in these waters was tied to its willingness to toe the line.