CPAC Film "The Letters-Aquaculture"

The Aquaculture Letters Series on CPAC.  A Documentary:

It is of great significance to note that when the new Trudeau Government took office in Canada last year, the Prime Minister presented ‘Mandate Letters‘ as is normal practice to each of his new Ministers. This time, what was different, was that those Mandate Letters were released publicly so that Canadians could see precisely what Ministers and their Departments were tasked with. The Canadian Public Affairs Channel (CPAC) decided to do a documentary series on the Mandate Letters so that critical issues can be better understood and considered by Canadian citizens. One of those documentaries, on a hugely important environmental and fishery subject, was a Mandate Letter on the conduct of Aquaculture. Specifically feedlot aquaculture – how should it be conducted in the future?                  

It is to say the least a highly controversial subject across Canada. The entire matter essentially comes down to a basic question:  in the conduct of open net pen fish farming,  who determines what is         ‘responsible‘ and ‘sustainable‘ regulation?

CPAC’s series interviews and challenges both sides of the debate. The proponents of feedlot salmon and trout, the Aquaculture companies, most particularly Cooke Aquaculture who say they need to feed the world. And the critics of this business model, those who would have open net pen fish farming stopped altogether and moved on land in the technologically superior closed containment model so as to avoid massive environmental pollution in coastal waters and threats to the wild fisheries.

Host Holly Doan and her film crew created this documentary which arguably is a very fair and balanced portrayal of the debate. Many of the interview subjects are members of The Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore, and they reveal their knowledge and intense concern for this subject throughout the course of the process. We would like to think anyone critically analyzing the facts and the risks in this matter would quickly come to the same concern that we do. There is undoubtedly a huge role for Aquaculture in the future, but the open net pen model should be scrapped and replaced as soon as possible.

click here to watch the film:

http://www.cpac.ca/en/highlight/the-mandate-letters-aquaculture/