Why Canada's Fish Farm Divide Matters More Than You Think

In June 2024, the Government of Canada announced that open-net pen salmon farming will be banned in British Columbia coastal waters by 2029 [1].
The decision — framed as responsible, realistic, and achievable — was celebrated by conservationists and First Nations who have spent decades warning that industrial fish farming threatens wild Pacific salmon.

Yet, across the country, on Nova Scotia’s Atlantic coast, open-net salmon pens continue to expand. New proposals, including one in Liverpool Bay, promise rural jobs and investment, even as similar systems are being phased out elsewhere [2].

How can the same technology be banned on one coast and welcomed on another?
The answer lies not only in science but in politics, economics, and culture — the interlocking systems that shape how Canadians define sustainability.
To understand the divide, we have to follow the currents through each layer of the system: political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental.

Examining the Issue

Political Life — Who Gets to Decide What’s “Responsible”

In British Columbia, aquaculture falls under federal regulation, giving Ottawa the authority to act. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) cited the precautionary principle — act before harm is certain — and committed to a complete transition toward closed-containment systems within five years [1].

Nova Scotia, by contrast, controls aquaculture provincially. The Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture licenses, monitors, and promotes the industry. Ottawa “respects provincial jurisdiction,” effectively leaving decisions to Halifax [1].
This jurisdictional gap has produced two Canadas: one where aquaculture is treated as an ecological threat, and another where it’s framed as an economic opportunity.

In Liverpool Bay, Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd., a subsidiary of Cooke Aquaculture, applied to more than quadruple production — from about 400,000 to 1.8 million salmon [2]. The application triggered public hearings before the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board (NSARB).

When the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) — the province’s oldest environmental NGO — applied for intervenor status to present evidence, the Board rejected the request after allowing Cooke to review and comment on it [3]. “The hearing is going to proceed without an environmental voice in the room,” said EAC’s marine coordinator, Simon Ryder-Burbidge [3].

The message was clear: the province may consult, but it doesn’t necessarily listen.
Governance here is less about fish and more about who counts as a legitimate participant in decision-making.

Proponents call open-net salmon farming part of the Blue Economy: an ocean-based growth model promising clean jobs for rural communities. The industry’s marketing emphasizes self-reliance and innovation — a sustainable frontier replacing the collapsed cod fishery.

But the economic math is thin.
Once operating, open-net farms are highly automated, employing few people year-round [4].
Corporate ownership is concentrated: Cooke Aquaculture, headquartered in New Brunswick, controls much of Atlantic Canada’s salmon production and processing chain, from hatcheries to global exports. Profits largely flow out of the communities that bear the environmental risks.

In British Columbia, foreign multinationals (Mowi, Grieg, Cermaq) dominate the sector, making political pushback easier. In Atlantic Canada, Cooke is homegrown and deeply embedded — sponsoring community sports teams and events, a benefactor as much as a business [5].
Criticizing it can feel like criticizing your neighbour’s livelihood.

Still, the economic dependency on a single company creates fragility. If contamination, disease, or market shocks occur, the cost falls on taxpayers and ecosystems, not shareholders.
The jobs are local; the liabilities are global.

Social Life — Trust, Identity, and Fracture

In coastal towns, aquaculture divides communities that otherwise share values and ancestry. Some see salmon pens as economic lifelines; others see them as cages of compromise.
This social tension shows up at kitchen tables, in church halls, and on social media — quiet resentments that fracture local identity.

Opposition groups like Protect Liverpool Bay include retired fishers, tourism operators, and environmental advocates. Supporters include municipal leaders seeking economic revival.
Each side accuses the other of short-sightedness. Both feel unheard.

Public participation processes, meanwhile, often reinforce cynicism. Hearings are lengthy, legalistic, and expensive to attend. Residents without lawyers feel outmatched. The EAC’s exclusion confirmed what many already suspected: some voices weigh more than others [3].

Compare that to British Columbia, where Indigenous Nations hold constitutionally protected resource rights. Their unified opposition to open-net farms — citing food security and cultural survival — helped drive federal policy [1].
In Nova Scotia, Mi’kmaw communities have expressed similar concerns, but their influence is constrained by provincial jurisdiction and incomplete co-management frameworks [6].

Trust is the invisible ecosystem here — and it’s collapsing faster than the fish stocks.

Technological Life — Innovation or Illusion

The aquaculture industry frames itself as technology-driven progress: automated feeding systems, underwater cameras, lice traps, and waste-management sensors.
But critics argue this is incremental innovation, not transformation.
Adding precision to a flawed system doesn’t fix its core problem: the open exchange between farm and ocean.

The alternative is closed-containment farming, where water is filtered and recirculated on land.
Canada already has proof of concept: Sustainable Blue in Centre Burlington, Nova Scotia, and Kuterra in British Columbia. Both raise salmon in clean, controlled facilities with near-zero pollution or escapes [7][8].

The challenge is cost — higher startup expenses and energy use.
Yet long-term analyses show closed systems offer better disease control, lower mortality, and consumer trust.
They also future-proof the industry against regulatory and reputational risk.

As the David Suzuki Foundation notes, land-based salmon farming “virtually eliminates disease and parasite outbreaks” and reduces fossil-fuel use [9].
The question isn’t whether the technology exists — it’s whether governments are willing to incentivize transition instead of subsidizing status quo.

Legal Life — Jurisdiction, Regulation, and Rights

The DFO’s 2024 policy is rooted in law: it applies only in federal coastal waters of British Columbia, where Ottawa regulates aquaculture licensing. The ban doesn’t extend eastward because Atlantic aquaculture falls under provincial jurisdiction [1].

That single sentence in the press release — “Elsewhere in Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada respects provincial jurisdiction” — codifies a two-tier environmental standard.
What’s considered unsafe for B.C. waters is still legally acceptable for Nova Scotia bays.

Nova Scotia’s Doelle-Lahey Report (2014) recommended stronger environmental oversight and community participation. While some reforms were adopted, others stalled, leaving ambiguous accountability between industry, regulators, and the public [10].

At the same time, Indigenous rights law continues to evolve. The federal government’s reconciliation agenda treats B.C. Nations as co-managers; in the Atlantic, Mi’kmaw governance over aquaculture remains consultative, not decisive.
This legal asymmetry reflects Canada’s broader struggle to apply environmental justice evenly across geography.

Environmental Life — What the Water Knows

Every study — from NGOs, academic researchers, and government scientists — tells the same story: open-net pens externalize their costs.

Waste, fecal matter, uneaten feed, and antibiotics sink beneath cages, creating oxygen-depleted dead zones. Parasites like sea lice proliferate and infect wild salmon migrating past.
Escaped farmed fish interbreed with wild stocks, weakening genetic resilience [4][9].

Globally, 99.9% of all “Atlantic salmon” consumed are farmed — a domesticated species distinct from endangered wild Atlantic salmon [11].
Labels such as “organic,” “sustainably sourced,” or “ocean-raised” are unregulated, misleading consumers who believe they’re making ethical choices [9][11].

The environmental burden extends far beyond the farm: feed for salmon is made from wild fish harvested elsewhere, contributing to food insecurity and marine depletion in other ecosystems [11].

In British Columbia, concern over wild Pacific salmon collapse — critical to orcas, bears, and forests — made inaction politically impossible [1].
In Nova Scotia, the absence of visible wild runs creates an illusion of safety.
But pollution and climate stress don’t stop at provincial borders.

The Systemic View — One Country, Two Futures

What Canada’s fish-farm divide reveals is not a difference in biology but a difference in governance philosophy.
On the Pacific coast, sustainability is treated as a matter of public trust and ecological precaution.
On the Atlantic coast, it’s treated as a managed risk and an economic negotiation.

Both coasts say they’re balancing environment and economy — they just start from opposite assumptions about which one is expendable.

The deeper question isn’t whether fish farms should exist. It’s whether public institutions can act consistently when science, politics, and power collide.
When the same species is “protected” on one coast and “produced” on another, sustainability becomes a story we tell ourselves — one that changes with the audience.

🕳️ Rabbit Holes — Where to Dive Deeper

Closing Reflection

Canada prides itself on being an environmental leader, yet the ocean tells a more complicated truth.
In British Columbia, wild salmon will soon swim free of industrial cages.
In Nova Scotia, the same cages expand in public water, defended as economic progress.

It’s easy to think these are different stories.
They’re not. They’re chapters in the same national narrative about what we’re willing to risk for stability — and how slowly we act when harm is hard to see.

If sustainability means anything, it has to mean consistency.
Because when protection becomes political, and accountability depends on postal code, the water will be the first to remind us: we’re all downstream.

📚 References

1. Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Responsible, Realistic, and Achievable: The Government of Canada announces transition from open net-pen salmon aquaculture in coastal British Columbia. Government of Canada News Release, June 19, 2024.

2. Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. Liverpool Bay Expansion Application (AQ #1205), Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board, 2023.

3. Ecology Action Centre. EAC Rejected from Intervention in Liverpool Bay Fish Farm Expansion Hearing. Press Release, October 26, 2023.

4. Salmon.info. Eating Responsibly: Tips for Consumers. 2025.

5. Cooke Aquaculture Corporate Reports and Atlantic Operations Summary, 2024.

6. Kwilmu’kw Maw-klusuaqn (Mi’kmaq Rights Initiative). Submissions to NSARB on Coastal Aquaculture and Treaty Rights., 2023.

7. Sustainable Blue. Land-Based Aquaculture Systems Overview. Company Report, 2024.

8. Kuterra. Land-Based Salmon Aquaculture: Lessons Learned. 2023.

9. David Suzuki Foundation. Salmon: What to Eat and What to Avoid. Living Green Series, 2025.

10. Doelle, Meinhard, and William Lahey. A New Regulatory Framework for Aquaculture in Nova Scotia. Independent Review Report, 2014.

11. SeaChoice. Seafood Labelling and Certification Guidelines for Canadian Consumers. 2024.