PM Carney’s announcement of his first five nation-building projects makes it clear – Canadian initiatives already under development, with proven economic benefits and resilience, are the way forward. Canada’s most valuable salmon runs have rebounded beyond expectation where the federal government has removed industrial salmon farms. The First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance calls on the Prime Minister to complete the government’s open-net pen fish farm transition planning process in order to improve the abundance of salmon coastwide.
Safeguarding healthy fish populations is not only a “Nation-building project”, it is every nation’s responsibility. Wild salmon add value to the B.C. economy, transport more nutrients into B.C. forests than humans could ever endeavour to move and goes to the heart of reconciliation with First Nations.
“The continued protection and rebuilding of wild Pacific salmon is a fundamental Aboriginal Rights accommodation measure that meaningfully enacts the rebuilding of traditions and culture called for in the Truth and Reconciliation reports."
Bob “Galagame” Chamberlin, First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance (FNWSA) Chair
The FNWSA calls on the Carney government to stop the practice of putting diseased farm fish into our coastal waters. A scientific paper from UBC published September 12, 2025, documents the Department of Fisheries and Oceans’ (DFO’s) refusal to acknowledge international and government science concerning the risk of disease pathogens, notably the Atlantic virus PRV, to wild Pacific salmon. Refusing to acknowledge these risks allows the Department to circumvent s.56 of Canada’s Fishery (General) Regulations, which prohibits transfer of fish carrying disease into Canadian waters. Three lawsuits, including one by the ʼNa̱mǥis First Nation, have been won on this point. Ignoring these rulings, DFO continues to refuse to screen for, and prohibit transfer of, farm salmon carrying PRV. We find DFO’s practices abhorrent and unacceptable.
Peer-reviewed research by scientists from Canada’s leading institutions that our Nations work with and trust, is clear. Releasing untreated industrial-scale farm waste into the marine environment is reckless. In 2023, 16 professors, journal editors and research scientists wrote an open letter to then Minister of Fisheries Joyce Murray, detailing DFO’s failure to meet widely accepted scientific standards in assessing the impact of sea lice discharged from farms.
Two federal Ministers of Fisheries, Bernadette Jordan and Joyce Murray, closed the cluster of salmon farms closest to the Fraser River, following recommendations from the Cohen Commission of enquiry into the collapse of the Fraser sockeye and implementing the Precautionary Principle, a founding principle of Canada’s Oceans Act. The result – while DFO forecast low Fraser sockeye returns this year, the actual returns are currently estimated at greater than 3 times the forecast and the highest on this cycle of sockeye since 1997.
The nations of the FNWSA stand together in calling on the Carney government to stay the course and allow the rebuilding of wild salmon runs to continue by removing open net pen salmon farms as promised. They recognize that the aquaculture industry will resist building the infrastructure on land to secure the future of their industry until the cheap and dirty technology of the past 30 years is outlawed in Canada.
“This important work must be completed respecting the majority First Nation voices participating in the process to date, supporting the removal of open-net pen fish farms from B.C. waters,” Bob (Galagame’) Chamberlin, FNWSA Chair
Bob (Galagame’) Chamberlin, Chairman, First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance