Trudeau urged to rein in Fisheries Minister Murray

The Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance has sent an open letter calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to curb the activities of his controversial Fisheries Minister, Joyce Murray.

The CAIA has attacked what it describes as the “uncertainty, confusion, and lack of due process caused by Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Canada, the Honourable Joyce Murray, through her active disregard of her departmental science advisory process as it relates to the future of the BC salmon farming sector”.

It warns: “If continued, these actions have the serious potential to further undermine economic activity of all resource sectors in Canada and damage the trust of Canadians in government science.”

The CAIA asks Trudeau how “…any resource-based business can operate in Canada with the uncertainty and lack of due process being established by Murray, through her active disregard of her departmental science advisory process”.

CAIA President and CEO Timothy Kennedy says in the letter: “The Minister is circumventing the government’s own principles of evidence-based policy and undermining this Liberal government’s promises of indigenous reconciliation and clean economic growth.

“The Prime Minister trusts Agriculture Canada and Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) scientists daily to ensure that Canada’s food is safe.

“He trusts Environment Canada scientists on climate change. The DFO science process for aquaculture was reviewed several years ago by an eminent international advisory group with the Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister and found to be fundamentally sound.

“Why is the DFO Minister choosing science linked to activists with a pre-set agenda?” Kennedy asks.

Murray is shortly expected to present options for the BC salmon farm transition framework to the Federal cabinet, says the association.

It maintains government decisions have already shut down 40% of salmon farms in BC since 2020, with a devastating impact on indigenous and coastal communities.

“It has also made groceries more expensive for Canadian families, increasing carbon emissions, and wiping out jobs that are the lifeblood of rural, coastal and Indigenous communities,” says the letter.

Joyce Murray