Question Period Note: Closed Containment

• We take the impacts of salmon aquaculture seriously and continue to support technologies that improve environmental performance.
• The Alternative Production Technologies Working Group, created under the Indigenous and multi-stakeholder advisory body last year, provided recommendations last summer on emerging technologies, including closed containment.
• Over more than a decade, our government has supported the development of various closed containment technologies, and we remain committed to further advancing any technology that reduces the environmental interactions of fish farming and wild fish.

If pressed on why the Government does not transition to closed-containment salmon farms as a Covid-19 economic stimulus measure:

• Commercial scale alternative production technologies, such as closed containment, remain primarily at the development stage and carry high capital costs and significant financial risks.
• The current active production volume coming from land-based closed containment salmon farming is small, at around 3,000 metric tonnes representing about 0.1 per cent of global salmon production.
• While the construction of closed containment facilities in the short term could provide job opportunities, according to the State of Salmon Aquaculture Technology report, there are fewer jobs per metric tonne of salmon associated with closed containment systems.
• There is an international trend in building large-scale closed containment facilities in high growth import markets, not in coastal, rural communities, which in Canada is where aquaculture is a key employer.

• The Government’s position has been to be technologically neutral regarding how the aquaculture industry meets Canada’s legislative and regulatory standards that are in place to ensure that aquaculture is sustainable and conducted in a manner that minimizes environmental impacts.
• Considerable and growing interest exists globally for closed containment for salmon aquaculture. This is driven by two primary factors: 1) the desire to reduce interactions with the natural environment; and 2) a desire to increase overall production to meet market demands where traditional production methods are not capable of producing more.
• Closed containment technology remains primarily at an R&D stage and has high capital and energy requirements. Globally, there are currently no examples of commercially viable large-scale salmon aquaculture operations (nothing greater than 1,000 mt) in closed containment, although many are in the planning/building phases. Total global production using closed containment currently sits at 3,000 mt (~0.1% of global production).
• Further, there is an international trend toward making investments in and the building of large-scale closed containment facilities in high growth import markets and where infrastructure exists (i.e. US, China, and Norway). To date, these facilities are still either under construction or have not yet completed a full commercial harvest. Completion of several production cycles at full scale will be needed to boost confidence in the long-term viability of this technology.
• Industry has indicated that a move to closed containment would result in the finfish industry moving out of BC (and perhaps out of Canada), closer to the markets it serves or to distribution hubs, as it would no longer require the comparative advantage of the BC coastline.
• On June 4, 2019, the Minister announced the creation of an Indigenous and multi-stakeholder advisory body and three technical working groups to develop recommendations related to aquaculture management, including alternative production technologies.
• The salmonid alternative production technologies technical working group (TWG) was created to investigate and support the development and adoption of technologies that enhance the sustainability of aquaculture to support the protection and conservation of wild fish in the Pacific Region.
• The TWG provided its recommendations to the Department in the summer of 2020.
• Kuterra, which is owned by the ‘Namgis First Nation, was the first closed containment facility designed and built in North America to pilot the grow-out of Atlantic salmon to market size.
• While the pilot scale facility was only able to operate at a break-even point after five years of operation, the proof-of-concept venture was successful in generating large amounts of data and lessons learned on the operation of containment technology for the production of Atlantic salmon.
• Emergent Holdings, parent company of Whole Oceans, a closed containment producer based in Maine, signed a 15 year lease with Kuterra on December 20, 2019. It is reported that Emergent will use Kuterra to produce Atlantic salmon, and as a research and training facility for Whole Oceans’ large Atlantic salmon closed containment project planned in Bucksport, Maine. While the project was scheduled to break ground in the spring of 2020 (projected 25,000 metric tonnes over three phases), a news release from the company in August 2020 indicated that they are still in the pre-construction phase and continue to make progress toward groundbreaking for the Bucksport facility. It is unclear if Kuterra will be expanded beyond its current production capacity of 250 metric tonnes.
• The Government of Canada, through DFO and Sustainable Development Technology Canada, has invested over $10 million in closed containment technology development projects ranging from improving waste management to pilot-scale demonstration facilities such as Kuterra.

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