Salmon farm battle about competition

Kevin Libin
June 18th, 2010
Financial Post

Last month, 1,000 British Columbians showed up on Government Street in Victoria for a protest against salmon farms. Their signs read "ban fish farms." They called them dangerous. Said they spread disease to wild salmon stocks. They're messing with ecosystems. The fish is bad for you. They violate traditions of coastal First Nations. Their messages seemed heartfelt; their victory felt imminent.

"I'm thinking we get to keep our salmon," Alexandra Morton, the activist biologist who led the protest, said to cheers.

She had reason to be optimistic they were winning their battle. The movement against fish farms on the Pacific coast has proved a potent one. The B.C. government has been paralyzed on the issue. In 2008, it slapped a moratorium on granting any new licenses to fish farms on the north coast, despite record demand from Europe. Last year, Ms. Morton sued the province in court arguing that oceans were a federal matter, and the province had no right to even regulate aquaculture: the province lost.

Read the full story in The Financial Post