Fish farms shutdown 'shows a Canadian Trump could happen'
Former Mowi executive says British Columbia transition provides an example to 'smug' citizens of how easily the country's traditionally restrained and sensible government can be undermined
Moves by federal fisheries ministers to shut down salmon farming in British Columbia despite scientific evidence that it doesn’t harm wild salmon stocks should be a warning to Canadians that the “aggressive use” of executive power demonstrated by US president Donald Trump could happen in their country, too.
That's the verdict of seafood sector consultant and commentator Alan Cook, in the wake of Trump’s repeated use of executive orders to bypass Congress.
“Canadians are feeling pretty smug about American politics,” writes Cook in the forward to an article posted on LinkedIn that's aimed at both those for and against open-net pen fish farming in BC.
We watch Donald Trump test the limits of executive power and tell ourselves this kind of thing couldn’t happen here. I’m not so sure. British Columbia’s salmon farming ban is an uncomfortable case study.
“We watch Donald Trump test the limits of executive power and tell ourselves this kind of thing couldn’t happen here. I’m not so sure,” adds Cook, whose career has included spells as managing director of salmon farmer Mowi Canada East, and chief operating officer with New Zealand King Salmon.
“British Columbia’s salmon farming ban is an uncomfortable case study. DFO (Department of Fisheries and Oceans) spent years building the scientific record. The political executive ignored it. And the Fisheries Act gave the minister ‘absolute discretion’.”
Cook says the point he is making in the article, headlined “It can happen here”, is not an argument about whether salmon farming should continue in BC but the way in which the decision about its future has been reached – and how that type of concentrated power could be used in the future.
An example of intransigence
He uses salmon farming as an example, looking at decisions taken by two Liberal Party fisheries ministers - first by Bernadette Jordan and then by current minister Joanne Thompson.
Jordan received a mandate from the then Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, to “transition” salmon farming in the province and in December 2020 she announced that salmon farming would be phased out of the Discovery Islands in BC, even though nine separate pathogen risk assessments by the DFO’s own scientists concluded risks to wild salmon from fish farms were no more than minimal.
“The government asked its scientists to investigate the risk. They did the work. The answer was minimal.
“Then the government decided to remove the farms anyway,” writes Cook.
In 2022 a court quashed Jordan’s decision because the process had failed to meet the requirements of procedural fairness, but the next fisheries, Joyce Murray, conducted a new process that satisfied the court and again declined to renew the licences.
'Absolute discretion'
“Ultimately, the courts concluded that it had the authority to make the decision,” writes Cook.
“That is precisely the point.
“Section 7 of the Fisheries Act says that the minister may issue fisheries licences ‘in his absolute discretion’.
“Those are extraordinary words.
“They do not mean a minister can simply behave lawlessly. Decisions remain subject to administrative law and judicial review. But they give the political executive enormous latitude over the eventual outcome. Canada could build a sophisticated regulatory system, employ scientists, veterinarians, biologists and fisheries professionals, spend years developing an evidence base, and still leave the ultimate decision in the hands of a minister who was not bound by that evidence.
“That is what happened.”
Science isn't the only factor
Cook acknowledges that science cannot answer every public-policy question.
“Governments legitimately consider Indigenous rights and interests, economics, uncertainty, social concerns and the precautionary principle. Elected politicians exist in part to weigh considerations that cannot be settled in a laboratory.
There is a considerable difference between acknowledging that reality and pretending we have constructed a regulatory system in which evidence protects us from politically motivated outcomes. We haven't.
“But there is a considerable difference between acknowledging that reality and pretending we have constructed a regulatory system in which evidence protects us from politically motivated outcomes.
“We haven't.”
He points out the even though Trudeau has gone, the policy to eliminate open-net salmon farming in British Columbia remains, and that prime minister Mark Carney and current fisheries minister Joanne Thompson haven’t reversed course despite 18 months of talk about strengthening Canadian food security.
“What matters for this discussion is that changing the prime minister did not make the underlying exercise of executive power disappear.”
Temptation similar for politicians
Cook says an executive order by Trump is not the same thing as a Canadian fisheries minister exercising statutory discretion, but that “the institutional temptation” to bypass electoral chambers is similar.
Courts intervene when the line of lawful authority has been crossed, but “the executive does not have to cross that line to achieve an extraordinary amount”.
“The Discovery Islands decision demonstrates that rather neatly. DFO did the science. The government wanted a different outcome. Its first attempt was stopped by a court because of the process it followed. Ottawa corrected the process, reached essentially the same destination, and this time the courts upheld it.”
Our constitutional structures are different [to the US]. But the same basic problem exists here: we grant governments substantial discretionary powers ... The BC salmon-farming decision should make us a little less smug about that arrangement.
Importance of constraint
The farms closed, then in June 2024, Ottawa went announced that open-net pen salmon farming in BC would be prohibited after June 30, 2029.
“You may applaud that outcome. In some ways, that makes you the ideal person to consider the question I’m asking,” writes Cook.
“Because broad executive power rarely looks dangerous when it is producing something we want.”
It is only when the identical institutional power passes into the hands of someone we distrust that we suddenly discover the importance of constraints, he writes.
“Our constitutional structures are different [to the US]. Our political culture is different. But the same basic problem exists here: we grant governments substantial discretionary powers and then place enormous faith in the judgement and restraint of the people who inherit them.
“The BC salmon-farming decision should make us a little less smug about that arrangement.”
