I discovered that wherever salmon farming occurred the disastrous events of the Broughton Archipelago replayed. Wild fish died, fishermen became outraged, government turned blind eyes and finally vandalism erupted. The price of farm salmon has declined precipitously over the past 10 years. Farmers are driven to cut every possible cost. Alaska, one of the few coasts to ban salmon farming, has seen their wild salmon stocks skyrocket, driving prices lower.
Wild salmon are the corporate farmers' competitor.
Whatever their intentions, it is not in the farmers' best interest, nor can they afford to protect BC's wild salmon. As long as viable wild stocks exist, the farmers will not own the market. Then he went on to sign an open-ended policy allowing imports to continue indefinitely. In 1990, a Norwegian Parliamentary Committee on Environment told the Canadian government they regretted ignoring their scientists' advice not to import exotic stocks, because they are currently poisoning entire rivers to be rid of a Baltic parasite and Scottish disease. Ireland has seen fisheries collapse in every loch in which there are salmon farms.