Spokespeople from the salmon farming industry said media assertions of the proposed Animal Health Act's potential impact on their industry were manifestly not correct.
A quarantine placed on Grieg Seafood's Ahlstrom Point farm was recently lifted after a routine test yielded an initial positive for infectious haematopoietic necrosis (IHN).
Subsequent testing came back negative, but media reports helped draw attention to a situation involving one possibly infected fish.
The [Act] would never have had any impact on reporting of fish farming issues this is because aquaculture comes under Federal jurisdiction, Stewart Hawthorn of Grieg Seafood said to Coast Reporter. The bill in B.C. was not aimed at aquaculture, rather it was aimed at terrestrial farming systems and was designed to encourage reporting. I hope you can correct that misinformation.
Initially, Section 16 of Bill 37 read a person must refuse, despite the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, to disclose information that would reveal that a notifiable or reportable disease is or may be present in a specific place.
That section was later amended by the government, ostensibly to clear up confusion with the proposed amendment.
Critics including the B.C. NDP said the Act's effect would have been unchanged by the amendment.
Repeated requests for comment from Minister of Agriculture Don McRae were unsuccessful, but the government maintained that the legislation's primary purpose was to protect producers.
One of the concerns was the misinterpretation of a certain section in the bill, said Ministry spokesperson Sharon Dean. Thatmisinterpretation was corrected through an amendment introduced during committee stage of the bill.
Despite reports to the contrary, Dean said the legislation was not shelved and had remained on the order paper.
What the B.C. Liberal plan will be for the possibly misunderstood but definitely controversial legislation remains unclear. The Ministry maintained that the Act would place B.C. in line with other provincial jurisdictions in Canada.
We're not sure why this got quite so misrepresented/misunderstood, but I do know that quite a few stories happened without us being contacted, so we were only able to offer clarification after the fact, said BC Salmon Farmers Association communications manager Colleen Dane. Because we are federally regulated, there wouldn't have been a change in the sampling and reporting done on our farms.
Controversy around the bill came on the heels of a viral outbreak at a salmon farm in Tofino, where thousands of fish had to be culled.
Researchers like Alexandra Morton have warned of the possibility that a farm salmon outbreak could have disastrous consequences for the province's wild fish stocks.
