UPDATE, SPRING 2026

A remarkable recovery is underway along the British Columbia coast – wild Pacific salmon are coming back!

Why? Most open net-pen Atlantic salmon farms have been removed from the complex Inside Passage between the BC mainland and Vancouver Island (see map on our Home page). The intricate channels among the Discovery Islands and Broughton Archipelago are critically important migration corridors for British Columbia’s wild salmon. They are, essentially, bottlenecks that exposed migrating salmon to the lice and pathogens that escaped from the farms that were located there. Especially vulnerable were juveniles leaving the rivers and migrating north to the ocean.

With most of the farms gone, the returns of adult wild Pacific salmon that migrate through the Inside Passage to coastal rivers have increased dramatically, including to the Fraser River. Our report on this amazing story is found here.

Last November, many First Nations gathered in Port Alberni for a potlatch to consolidate and grow their opposition to open net-pen Atlantic salmon farms. It was a powerful and memorable event which culminated in the signing of a Migratory Salmon Declaration. A six-minute summary video of the potlatch is found here.

Meanwhile, the Government of Canada’s ban on these farms as of July 2029 remains in place. A “transition plan” to implement the ban was completed in 2025 and has now been in the Prime Minister’s Office for months. Neither First Nations nor environmental organizations close to the issue have heard anything about when the Prime Minister will act. We want to do all we can to encourage the Prime Minister to implement the plan!

And time is very short. It takes about three years to go from an egg to a harvestable fish. So, hatcheries should not start eggs for smolts destined for open net-pen farms after this coming June 2026. And the last licences for transferring smolts to open net-pens should be no later than the summer of 2027.

Please tell Prime Minister Carney and Fisheries Minister Thompson that you want them to implement the transition plan now!

TAKE ACTION

You can voice your concern for wild salmon and your firm support for implementing the 2029 ban by signing Clayoquot Action’s online letter here. It will go to Prime Minister Mark Carney, the Minister of Fisheries, and to all members of the Liberal Pacific Caucus. You can also sign Safe Salmon’s similar letter here.

We also encourage you to contact the Prime Minister and the Minister of Fisheries directly. Even a simple email or postcard saying “Implement the 2029 ban on fish farms from BC’s coast!” can make a difference.

Their contact information is:

Rt. Hon. Mark Carney, Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa, ON K1A 0A2
Email: [email protected]

Hon. Joanne Thompson, Minister of Fisheries
200 Kent Street, Station 15N100
Ottawa, ON K1A 0E6
Email: [email protected]