May 5, 2023
Dear Minister Joyce Murray;
Every measure that protects life in the ocean is so critical.
I have copied you and your staff on my emails to DFO regulators and scientists, but with all you must deal with I am not sure the overarching pattern is clear. The evidence of out-of-control regulatory capture is inescapable. As well, there is an urgent need to apply the international definition of “research fraud” to the record that exists within some DFO science groups. The department must reconcile why DFO labs are reporting opposite conclusions. The salmon farming industry cannot be both low and high risk to wild salmon. This dichotomy has put you at legal risk and has destroyed public confidence.
Regulatory capture. I hope you will consider the sequence of events below, just one of many incidents, that suggests some DFO staff are so responsive to the needs of the salmon farming industry, that regulations are being manipulated in a way that defeats the intent to protect wild fish.
For the past 16 weeks senior DFO management has refused to answer a simple question. Which licence was used to determine Cermaq would not be charged for a breach of licence (reported by DFO staff) just prior to awarding that farm a near 50% production increase? Was the licence in effect at the time of the breach upheld? Or was it the licence issued 3 months later, edited to provide relief from the specific condition that had been breached?
Initially, I was told the answer would be forthcoming. When it was not, and I contacted the senior staff who had reported the Bawden farm was in compliance, I was instructed to solely address my question to the Director of Aquaculture. Months of silence later, I was told to solely direct my question to the Regional Director General. After 30 more days of silence, she informed me that my communications might be ignored because an unspecified email from me, on an unspecified date had not met DFO values. My request for the email she was referring to has been met with ongoing silence. Now I understand the RDG is on vacation until retirement and the question remains unanswered.
The Director of Aquaculture, Brenda McCorquodale and RDG, Rebecca Reid do not want to answer how was a salmon farm owned by the Mitsubishi Corporation was not charged for violating the laws of its host country and then granted an increase in production which the company had been urgently requesting.
As they attempt to avoid one question, they have raised a larger one - has the right of Canadians to know what their government is doing been forfeited at the whim of a bureaucrat? While my emails are considered a breach of DFO values, a DFO scientist is reporting her staff are suffering “character assassination” from within DFO.
Regarding the evidence of science fraud. The record provides substantive evidence strongly suggesting falsification of some DFO scientific research. Falsification is defined as omission of results that significantly alter the conclusion of the research. Each of the examples I have encountered via the Access to Information Act, has significantly benefited the salmon farming companies using BC waters. A few examples:
- 2016 - Dr. Kyle Garver received results from Dr. Espen Rimstad’s lab in Norway. The virus PRV found in BC is a disease agent. Section 56 of the FGR prohibits transfer of fish infected with a disease agent. Mowi told the court if prohibited from transferring farm salmon from PRV infected hatcheries, they would be “severely” impacted (s.11, p82s). Mowi co-funds and co-publishes with Garver on papers that ignore the Norwegian results repeating that PRV is not causing disease. A DFO lab, independent of industry, reporting the opposite, PRV is a disease agent is ignored. PRV is known to have originated in the north Atlantic, arriving in BC concurrently with 30 million Atlantic salmon eggs. Because it has never been designated as a disease agent ORV has been allowed to spread to wild salmon, causing reduced survival of Pacific salmon.
- 2019 Cermaq was never charged when the heavily restricted anti-lice drug Lufeneron was found by DFO staff on the sea floor in Clayoquot Sound in a 1.5km radius around a farm that did not have permission for this drug. The public was never warned even though Health Canada refuses to permit this drug for lice treatment in sea pens due to human health concerns. A farm salmon treated with this drug in a hatchery cannot be consumed for 12 months due to its persistence.
- 2022 DFO research demonstrating that Tenacibaculum, found in most salmon farms, is a disease agent has been repeatedly wiped from the DFO record. As a result, it is also spreading to wild salmon and may have killed up to 56% of young Fraser sockeye migrating through salmon farms in the Discovery islands.
- 2022 - Dr. Simon Jones provided Mowi with a favourable conclusion that hydrogen peroxide treatment significantly reduces sea lice infectivity, even though his staff reported the opposite. Mowi and Cermaq provided this false result to DFO to satisfy a condition of their licence to farm salmon in BC.
- 2022 - Dr. Kyle Garver terminated his investigation into persistence of the virus PRV in farm salmon processing plant effluent when his lab reported that young salmon exposed to this effluent were becoming infected. Provincial Minister George Heyman, in charge of regulating the effluent from these plants, was never informed. As a result while 15 salmon farms were closed in the Discovery Islands, the impact of the industry continues via the effluent from the farm salmon processing plant on the Fraser salmon migration route.
- 2023 - Mowi told the RDG to be sure to use an upcoming sea lice CSAS to soften regulations because regulations were impacting their financial performance. Tasked with writing this CSAS Dr. Simon Jones crossed out the sentence written by his staff that implicated salmon farms in lice infections on young wild salmon, and Jones wrote in a sentence stating the opposite. This edit carried over into the 2023 sea lice CSAS. When 16 Canadian scientists provided you with this evidence and requested access to the data Simon Jones to confirm his findings, they were silently refused.
Because scientists in your department are publishing opposite conclusions, i.e., salmon farms are both low and high risk - you are forced to ignore a portion of DFO science every time you make a decision about the salmon farming industry. This is exposing you to repeat legal challenge.
The 2023 sea lice CSAS is a good example. Over a dozen BC scientists have researched impact of salmon farms on sea lice infection of young wild salmon. The outlier nature of Dr. Jones’ conclusions would require transparency to be accepted. Yet the supporting data remains confidential, and the evidence of result tampering is undeniable. The 2023 sea lice CSAS is confirmation that DFO science is not to be trusted.
It’s the same with the CSAS results for Tenacibaculum and PRV. A review of edits to the many drafts of these CSAS documents reveals repeat wiping from the record of all evidence that these common farm salmon pathogens are harming Pacific salmon exposed to the farms.
The core problem is that farm salmon pathogens cannot be regulated to protect wild fish because the economic viability of the salmon farming industry depends on releasing its waste into wild fish habitat.
I certainly commend your efforts to date, but someone needs to directly address the issues of fraud and regulatory capture in DFO as the current behaviour is unacceptable in a democratic government. There must be consequences for crossing out inconvenient results and refusing answer simple questions why multinational corporations are not being charged.
Thank you for considering this evidence,
Alexandra Morton