VANCOUVER—Salmon are swimming into the 2019 federal election — the Liberals and Greens are promising to end the controversial practice of fish farming in open ocean pens by 2025, shifting the industry to farms that are completely separated from the sea.

Industry associations say the move would put thousands of jobs in jeopardy, but a longtime opponent of open-net fish farming says getting salmon farms out of the water will not only protect B.C.’s at-risk wild salmon — it will save the industry.

Canada is the world’s fourth largest producer of farmed salmon. The industry was valued at just more than $1 billion in 2017, and about 70 per cent of the farmed salmon produced in Canada that year came from B.C.

Open-net fish farms, however, allow ocean water to flow freely through pens packed with Atlantic salmon, potentially spreading disease and parasites to B.C.’s wild Pacific salmon as they swim nearby.

After facing court battles and considerable criticism and from environmentalists and some First Nations, the Liberals are now committing to work with the province of B.C. “to develop a responsible plan to transition from open-net pen salmon farming in coastal waters to closed containment systems by 2025.”

Wild salmon have suffered significant declines, said Jonathan Wilkinson, the Liberal incumbent in North Vancouver who served as fisheries minister since July 2018.

While climate change and habitat are major factors, there are also concerns about the negative impact fish farms have on wild salmon, he said.

“We recognize that we need to really be accelerating the implementation of the precautionary principle — that is everything that may have an impact, we need to ensure we’ve addressed,” he said.

That includes salmon aquaculture.

“I think this move is just stunning,” said Alex Morton, a biologist and vocal critic of open-net fish farms. “I think it’s fabulous.”

Morton said moving fish farms out of the water is not only an important step for rebuilding declining wild salmon populations, she said it’s the best way to save the aquaculture industry.

Salmon farms “are just dogged at every turn,” she said.

“Now, nobody’s against aquaculture that I’ve talked to, people just don’t want them releasing viruses and sea lice.”

The Green Party has also committed to “move all open-net pen finfish aquaculture facilities into closed containment systems on land,” on the same timeline.

The NDP, meanwhile, says it would work with the province of B.C. and First Nations to transition the industry in B.C. to land based farms, but has not specified a timeline.

The Canada Aquaculture Industry Alliance and regional industry associations, including the BC Salmon Farmers Association, called the Liberal platform commitment “highly irresponsible,” in a statement Monday.

“If implemented, this requirement will only move local, top-quality production to other countries that may not have the high environmental standards Canada already employs,” the statement said.

In his own statement Tuesday, John Paul Fraser, the executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, said it’s “a recipe for industry stagnation and significant unemployment.”

“While closed-containment salmon farming has been successful at a smaller scale — and research and trials continue — no one in the world has successfully raised a large number of salmon in a commercial-scale land or sea based closed containment operation,” he said.

Fraser said the industry sees closed containment systems playing a “larger role in the future.”

“But, to forcefully mandate a five-year ‘transition’ is unachievable, especially when there is not business case or transition plan behind it,” he said.

’Namgis First Nation Chief Don Svanvik disagrees.

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“We’ve proven in Kuterra that you can do it,” he said, referring to the ‘Namgis land-based salmon farm pilot project.

He said he’s hopeful the Liberals would also plan to transition the industry out of the ocean entirely, if elected.

Even closed-containment systems in the ocean could pose a risk to wild salmon through accidental spills, he said.

At this stage, the Liberals are not specifying whether they would force industry to land, or if they would allow ocean-based closed containment systems as well.

If elected, the party would work with industry and other stakeholders to examine the technical options and “what we can do to get them to the point where they can compete effectively with the price of salmon from an open-net system,” Wilkinson said.

Atlantic Sapphire, a Norwegian company, is actively pursuing commercial scale salmon farming on land. By 2026, the company plans to be producing 90,000 tonnes of salmon a year at one facility in Miami. In 2017, the industry as a whole in B.C. produced 85,608 tonnes of salmon.

“What a wonderful boost to the economy it would be to build the infrastructure for these things,” Svanvik said.

The Greens add that they will transition responsibility for promoting salmon farming to Agriculture and Agrifood Canada from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), “to eliminate DFO’s conflicting roles of aquaculture promotion and wild salmon protection.”

This dual mandate was criticized last year by federal Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand, who concluded in one of her spring 2018 audits that DFO had failed to adequately manage the risks salmon farms pose to wild fish.

Wilkinson said the Liberals are up for the challenge of getting closed-containment fish farm technology to the point where it’s economically feasible.

“The one thing that we all agree on is that aquaculture is important, half of the fish that we eat come from aquaculture operations and none of us want to see further pressure put on wild stock,” he said.

“This as an opportunity to essentially really push forward the work that we need to do to get to a type of system that obviate this whole debate around the environment, that can allow us to have successful operations and ideally to grow those aquaculture operations over time.”

The salmon farming industry has faced considerable opposition in B.C. over concerns about the spread of sea lice and a viruses, including the highly contagious Piscine orthoreovirus, or PRV, to wild salmon.

For years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada allowed aquaculture companies to transfer salmon in ocean pens without first testing for PRV — a policy the Federal Court forced government to reconsider earlier this year.

The industry has remained an economic engine. In 2016, an estimated 1,800 people were employed in the aquaculture industry, which includes salmon farming, according to a B.C. government report. About 2,600 people were also employed in fish and seafood processing, which depends on wild fisheries and fish farming. Industry associations say the economic impact of salmon farming is much higher, employing thousands more people and contributing $1.5 billion to B.C.’s economy alone.

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