Lack of business sends Canadian fish packer to Norway
The MV "Stirling Carrier" has been the flagship fish transportation vessel for Stolt Seafarm in Canada for many years. It was built in Quebec, Canada based on engineering and drawings from Norway. The boat was mainly used to move harvest fish from the many Stolt Seafarm sites around the northern end of Vancouver Island to the Englewood Processing plant near Port McNeill.
Stolt Seafarm then joined forces with Marine Harvest, and subsequently this new entity was expanded by the inclusion of Pan Fish, which also had substantial operations in British Columbia. Pan Fish brought to the table a new, modern fish processing plant in nearby Port Hardy, and soon the entire production of farmed salmon from the new Marine Harvest was moved to this plant for processing and shipping.
The Englewood plant was shut down, and the Stirling Carrier is now sitting in Campbell River, awaiting a trip to Norway, where it will be used to harvest farmed salmon in that country's expanding industry. It is already decked out with a Norwegian flag and a new name- "Fröytind", registered in Trondheim Norway.
With an ever-expanding market for fresh farmed salmon in North America, B.C. fish farmers have for a long time been frustrated by the slowness of industry expansion and the bureaucratic nightmare associated with the approval of new production sitis. Public opinion has been allowed to be dominated by a number of environmental groups that are receiving funding for their anti-salmon farming activities from wealthy American foundations, sympathetic to Alaskan salmon fishermen who claim their market has been negatively impacted by farmed salmon from B.C..
British Columbia has the potential to be a serious player in the production of cultured aquatic products like farmed salmon, but unless bureaucrats and politicians find a way to support the expansion of this industry, companies like Marine Harvest and Mainstream will send their investment dollars in the same direction as the Stirling Carrier- out of the country.
