Legal issues holding up fish-farming complaint
Posted November 10, 2013 11:56 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
VANCOUVER (NEWS1130) – An effort by environmentalists to force Canada into changing the way it polices British Columbia’s salmon farms using an environmental side agreement to NAFTA has bogged down in legal arguments.
Fish-farming opponents from BC and the United States wrote the Commission for Environmental Cooperation in October 2012, alleging the federal government isn’t enforcing its Fisheries Act by exposing wild salmon to sea lice, disease, toxic chemicals and concentrated waste.
The federal government says continuing with the complaint would interfere with two legal cases that are currently underway, but the commission has now written back asking for further explanation and has set a deadline of Dec. 17.
The environmentalists want the commission to write what’s known as a factual record on the issue.
Commission spokesman Hugh Benevides says parties behind a submission may be able to use a factual record to press the government into changing how it enforces a law.
Bob Chamberlin of the Kwikwasu’tinuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation in Alert Bay says he wants to raise awareness about the impacts of fish farming at an international level and he says NAFTA provides that opportunity.
