Proposed Aquaculture Act to set consistent national standards.
“It allows us to discuss things like best practices and ensure that we’re doing everything that we can to both grow the industry but to ensure that it’s done in an environmentally sustainable way,” said Jonathan Wilkinson, minister of fisheries, oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard, after a meeting of Canadian fisheries and aquaculture ministers in St. John’s, N.L according to the Province.
“Such federal legislation will ensure that Canada’s aquaculture sector is a global leader in producing high quality aquaculture projects in an environmentally sustainable matter,” the minster added.
It comes after Federal environment commissioner Julie Gelfand issued a report earlier this year calling for the monitoring and scientific study of the industry’s effects on wild fish.
The Grieg NL Placentia Bay Aquaculture Project is located just outside Marystown where the company is constructing a 21.000 sq.m hatchery, that will produce 7 million smolt. The company hope to insert the first salmon eggs into the facility in 2019. This will allow them to move the first fish to sea during the summer of 2020 and to harvest before the winter 2021.
