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OTTAWA — The federal government isn’t doing enough to protect wild fish from threats posed by salmon farming in Atlantic Canada and British Columbia, according to a new report from the federal environment commissioner.

The audit found that Fisheries and Oceans Canada has been slow to study the effects of Canada’s $1 billion salmon-farming industry on wild fish, and is not doing enough to prevent the spread of infectious disease. The department has failed to put limits on the amount of drugs and pesticides that salmon farms can use, and has limited capacity to enforce its own regulations, the report concluded.

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“I suggest that the department is at risk of being seen to be promoting aquaculture over the protection of wild fish,” environment commissioner Julie Gelfand told reporters in a news conference Tuesday.

Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc said he accepts all the commissioner’s recommendations. “I don’t think there should be any confusion that our government’s primary responsibility is to regulate in a safe way all of these activities and to ensure that there’s no harmful interaction with wild salmon populations or other species,” he told reporters in Ottawa.