Watch this series of clips by independent filmmaker Craig Delahunt from the Cohen Commission, including a key hour of testimony from the final day of ISAv hearings and interviews with experts outside the Commission.
The second of three extra days of hearings at the Cohen Commission into disappearing Fraser River sockeye yielded more surprises – the biggest of which came in the form of a telling internal email strain between DFO and Canadian Food Inspection Agency staff. The emails were sent following a teleconference for media hosted by the two departments, aimed at quelling concerns over the recent discovery of Infectious Salmon Anemia virus in wild BC salmon.
In a message dated November 9, 2011, Joseph Beres, an inspection manager at the CFIA, wrote to colleague Dr. Con Kiley and other senior DFO and CFIA staff who had appeared on the conference call:
Con,
It is clear that we are turning the PR tide to our favour – and this is because of the very successful performance of our spokes[people] at the Tech Briefing yesterday – you, Stephen, Peter and Paul were a terrific team, indeed. Congratulations! One battle is won, now we have to nail the surveillance piece, and we will win the war also.
Cheers, Joe.
In the same strain, Dr. Kiley replies, “Concentrate on the headlines, that’s often all that people read or remember. Both the ‘Top Stories’ and the ‘Related Pieces’.” (emphasis added)
And it appears Dr. Kiley really knows of what he speaks. That conference call and a subsequent one several weeks later – at least temporarily – removed some of the pressure from his department, as many media outlets in Canada and around the world ran with their talking points.
Commission Counsel Brock Martland asked another CFIA representative on the stand Friday, Dr. Kim Klotins, Acting National Manager for Disease Control Contingency Planning, what she thought Mr. Beres was thinking went he sent the above email. After much stammering, she replied, “We may get a little bit exuberant internally, but…I really can’t speak to what he was thinking during this.”
Mr. Martland questioned the “adversarial” attitude displayed in the emails, suggesting it smacks more of hockey players than scientists in pursuit of truth.
Further testimony heard by the Inquiry on Friday and throughout the previous day’s session demonstrate the tactics these officials were using to knowingly cover up the discovery of ISAv in BC. Earlier that morning, the Inquiry heard from Dr. Fred Kibenge, director of the Animal Veterinary College at the University of PEI – one of only two approved testing labs for the ISA virus sanctioned by the world animal health organization. Dr. Kibenge related the enormous political pressure he faced after confirming ISAv in two wild salmon from BC.
Under questioning from the conservation coalition’s counsel Karen Campbell, Dr. Kibenge described an inspection his lab faced by the CFIA soon after discovering the positive test results. “The inspection was meant to be about understanding my processes so they could improve their own practices, but once the inspection began I got the sense that it was about obtaining information, because the first thing they asked me about when they did the inspection was the samples.” Dr. Kibenge added, “I quickly realized that the purpose of the site visit…was actually in my view, to confirm a hypothesis that had already been presented in the media.”
On the stand beside Dr. Kibenge was Dr. Nellie Gage, who heads up the Moncton-based lab that found contradictory results upon which the CFIA seized to publicly invalidate Dr. Kibenge’s findings. The Inquiry learned that far from confirmed “negative” tests for ISAv in these wild fish, Dr. Gagne’s lab had also turned up a weak positive, which it discounted based on its inability to repeat the result. Yet, rather than call the tests “inconclusive” as they were, the CFIA described them as “negative”, which was plainly not the case.
To that end, Alexandra Morton’s counsel Greg McDade asked Dr. Gagne, “Did you ever speak out to your communications people, suggesting that DFO was misleading people based on your inconclusive results?” Gagne admitted, “No, I have not.” McDade also put to Gagne a media statement from the BC Salmon Farmers’ Association in which head lobbyist Mary-Ellen Walling declared unequivocally that Gagne’s “negative” findings proved Dr. Kibenge had been wrong and that ISA was confirmed not to be in BC. A weary-sounding Gage produced a few chuckles in the gallery when she retorted, “Do you know how many things are wrong that have been published up until know? That’s really just a drop in the bucket.” (emphasis added)
Dr. Kibenge explained he was concerned when he later learned that the Moncton lab had been consulted ahead of time as to what issues to look for at his lab. “Did CFIA consult you in a similar way about possible issues with the Moncton lab?” Campbell inquired. “No, they did not,” replied Kibenge.
Counsel for the aboriginal aquaculture coalition later asked Dr. Kibenge whether he feels there have been threats to him professionally and financially as a result of the criticism leveled at him and his lab over these ISAv tests. Dr. Kibenge responded, “This has been so public that my reputation and everything else has been questioned, so yes, you could say that.”
McDade followed up on this theme of political pressure on Dr. Kibenge when he asked, “If you had found a negative you would not have submitted to that pressure, right?” Kibenge’s answer: “Yes.” McDade continued, “Why such pressure because of a simple scientific finding?” to which Kibenge replied, “It’s a problem when the science is above any question, as was the case here.”
Dr. Kibenge intimated in his testimony that he understood why the Harper government was reacting this way, given the amount of money at stake with threats to the aquaculture industry from his findings. He was also sure to acknowledge the support of his college and university, suggesting that made it easier to deal with these attacks on his lab and professional integrity.
More emails released during Friday’s hearing revealed the lengths to which senior CFIA and DFO staff went to clamp down on Dr. Kibenge’s work. One note from Dr. Klotins to Dr. Kiley stated, “Dr. Kibenge did test the fish submitted by A. Morton. I believe we must check those samples for integrity. I’m thinking we should also advise all laboratories in Canada to not test any more samples of wild finfish for ISAv from the Pacific Ocean (Canada and US). K.” (emphasis added)
When pressed by McDade, Klotins downplayed the email, suggesting no further action came of it.
Commission Counsel Brock Martland posed a similar question to senior DFO manager Stephen Stephen, who took the stand in the afternoon. This time it was in reference to his alleged attempts to shut down the research into ISAv being conducted on the Pacific Coast by Dr. Kristi Miller. “Did you suggest Dr. Miller shouldn’t continue her ISAv research?” Martland inquired. Stephen answered, “I did suggest that until CFIA completes their investigation we should defer further testing.” Martland asked Stephen, “Was Kristi Miller’s discovery of ISAv a ‘game-changer’?” Stephen replied, “I don’t think it’s a game-changer at all,” followed by more of the party line about conducting further tests before jumping to any conclusions.
The day ended with yet another example of DFO covering up ISAv science. This time it involved an unpublished 2004 paper by Dr. Fred Kibenge’s wife, Molly Kibenge, which made headlines when it was leaked to media a few weeks ago. Dr. Jones headed up the lab where Kibenge was a post-doctoral student at the time of the paper and it was his decision not to publish it. Moreover, Jones also didn’t see fit to disclose the document to the Commission, even though he was legally required to – especially given its significance relative to these special hearings into ISAv.
Martland asked Jones, “Why didn’t you produce these documents to the Commission earlier? Didn’t you understand this was going to be an issue?” “No, I didn’t understand that,” replied Jones. “The concern that we had with Molly’s work was that we were not able to reproduce her findings. At the time it was just confusing and didn’t seem to have meaning…It was essentially a negative result.”
Essentially. Just not actually.
The Cohen Commission resumes Monday for one final day of special hearings into ISAv – when it is expected Jones, Stephen and others will face more tough questions on the cover-up of science related to the potentially deadly virus.
Read this report form The Winnipeg Free Press on the revelation at the Cohen Commission into disappearing sockeye by ISAv expert Dr. Fred Kibenge that he faced political pressure due to his positive test results suggesting ISAv exists in wild BC salmon.
VANCOUVER – A scientist who found signs of a potentially lethal fish
virus in B.C. salmon has told a federal commission he’s come under
government pressure for work he considers “above question.”
The results of Fred Kibenge, who runs a lab in P.E.I., were
widely publicized in October after he detected infectious salmon
anaemia in two of 48 sockeye smolts.
He told a special hearing for the inquiry studying the
collapse of the Fraser River salmon run that since then, he’s faced
difficult questioning from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. (Dec. 16, 2011)
“The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.” – Carl Sagan
Dr. Kristi Miller took the stage for a curtain call at the Cohen Commission into disappearing Fraser River sockeye yesterday, delivering a dramatic follow-up performance to her headline-grabbing run in September.
Among the bombshell revelations that emerged from the first of three extra days for the Commission – added recently to address the discovery of ISA virus in wild BC salmon – were the confirmation that ISA virus (or something very similar) is undoubtedly here in BC, and has likely been for at least 25 years; and Miller’s own detection of a new deadly virus in both farmed and wild salmon. The latter surprise was so fresh it came as a major shock to most everyone in the packed Wosk Centre for Dialogue, where this round of hearings is taking place.
There was plenty of techno-jargon on display at the hearing that had many – including yours truly – struggling to keep pace with the high-level banter on the stand; but between all the talk of PCRs, primers, probes and orthomyxo viruses emerged some truly dramatic revelations from Miller and three other key figures in the issue who testified on this day.
The players were Dr. Fred Kibenge, director one the world’s two official reference labs for ISAv, out of the University of PEI; Dr. Are Nylund, who video-conferenced in from Norway, where he heads up the other World Animal Health Organization-sanctioned ISAv testing lab; Dr. Nellie Gagne, whose Moncton-based lab specializes in disease testing for DFO’s Aquatic Animal Health unit; and Dr. Kristi Miller of DFO’s Pacific Biological Station. Miller came to prominence in the national media when she delved into her leading-edge studies into a mystery virus potentially responsible for wiping out wild sockeye at the Cohen Commission a few months back – also revealing the enormous political pressure and censorship she has been facing throughout this work.
On a day so jam-packed with heated exchanges and dynamite revelations, it’s hard to know where to begin when making sense of it all – but here are the Cole’s Notes, seen through the lens of Miller’s testimony:
First off, Dr. Miller helped clarify the baffling claims coming from both the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and BC Salmon Farmers’ Association that “ISA is not in BC.” Given the number of positive test results from the world’s top labs, the certainty with which the Harper Government and its fish farming pals have claimed the disease is not here has puzzled many in the media and conservation community. Well, Miller cleared up the confusion in her testimony, explaining the sneaky linguistic trick these folks have been leaning on in making these boasts. More on that in a moment.
Three of the four scientists on the stand, the sole exception being DFO’s Nellie Gagne, were quite comfortable asserting there are indications of ISA virus – or a very similar virus or yet unknown strain of ISAv – here in BC. The same three also concurred there was no hard evidence of ISA causing mortality in wild fish…yet. They all asserted the vital need for more testing at this stage – something DFO has gone out of its way to avoid (with the exception of Miller, who has taken this work upon herself – to the great consternation of DFO managers, by whom she claims she has been completely ostracized for her recent investigations into the virus).
Back to the verbal sleight of hand contained in that statement, “ISA is not in BC.” As Miller explained, there’s no real doubt that ISA virus (ISAv) is here; but until the virus is actually demonstrated to be killing salmon, it’s fair not to call it a “disease”. And that’s what these folks are hanging their hat on – by their definition ISA alone implies ISA disease. They are very careful not to call it ISAv (virus) – just ISA without the “v”, implying that there is no evidence of ISA disease here in BC – which appears, for the time being, to be technically correct, though patently and deliberately deceitful.
Much of the day’s discussion revolved around the nuanced differences in testing methods between the different labs. In total layman’s terms – which is all I’m capable of – Miller’s technique has been able to capture positive test results that Dr. Gagne’s lab in Moncton has missed. Meanwhile, Dr. Kibenge stood by his positive findings, as did Dr. Nylund, though he acknowledged that the degraded nature of the sample he examined prevented him from being able to reproduce the positive. But he was careful to say under questioning, “No, it’s not a negative – it’s a positive.”
Gagne’s lab, by contrast, has provided the inconclusive tests that the CFIA and salmon farmers have often cited in their defence – Note: not negative results, but rather “inconclusive”, for she has turned up positive results which were dismissed because they didn’t meet the lab and CFIA’s standards for an official positive result. Dr. Nylund had questions about Miller’s methods, but acknowledged that he didn’t know enough about them to call her results into question.
The fact is Miller is running what could be termed as a super-lab out of the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo. Because of the wealth of fish samples she has to draw on, dating back 25 years, and the sophistication of her equipment and methods, she’s able to process enormous volumes of tests and data compared to the other labs (several hundred tests a day compared to as little a 6 tests a week for some of the others).
Another key point Miller made on the stand was the fear she harboured of having all her years of samples confiscated by the CFIA, as the agency did to SFU professor Rick Routledge after his sockeye samples form Rivers Inlet came back positive for ISAv earlier this year – the catalyst, in fact, for the re-opening of the Cohen Commission. Miller indicated she felt intimidated by DFO managers and the CFIA from the strongly implied threat that they could storm into her lab and take away this enormously valuable genetic bank she oversees. “I was very concerned that that would be one threat that if the samples I’m working on were classified as ISA that I would lose the samples that are important for my genomics program,” she told the Inquiry.
It is thanks to this wealth of material that Miller was able to establish that ISAv has likely been here in BC at least since 1986 – as she was able to test livers from sockeye that date back that far and find evidence of the virus, which came as another shock amid the day’s proceedings.
The salmon farmers will be quick to change their story now from “There is no ISA in BC” to, “See, we told you – ISAv is here and has been since before we arrived, so it’s not our fault after all.”
They will try to make this case because it’s all they have left now that they’ve been stripped of their final fig leaves. But we also learned yesterday form Drs. Nylund and Kibenge that European and Canadian Atlantic strains of ISAv have been around for at least a hundred years and probably much longer. So have sea lice – all these pathogens and parasites are likely endemic to wild salmon.
What has changed is the introduction of these breeding grounds for disease that are open net pen fish farms. As Dr. Nylund explained, viral mutation and transmission occur at a much faster rate in farmed fish compared with wild because of the enormous densities of fish in these ocean feedlots, which incubate and propagate these pathogens. ISA was in Norway for decades – maybe centuries – before it devastated the country’s farmed and wild stocks. It wasn’t until the farms arrived – and grew in numbers and scale – that the problems really arose. Bear that in mind as the fish farmers spew their inevitable tripe in the coming days and weeks.
Once again, Miller acknowledged that she hasn’t found any hard evidence of ISA killing wild salmon in BC – she posited that we have stumbled onto a new strain of the virus unique to the North Pacific, which genetically closely resembles the European Strain of ISAv. But she also warned, “If the ISA that is virulent in Norway were to come here that would be a disaster.”
While Miller continues to search for another mystery virus that very well could be killing wild sockeye – referred to a different stages as salmon leukemia or a parvovirus, which was the focus of her testimony earlier this year at the Inquiry – the real bombshell from yesterday was her very recent discovery of a third deadly virus affecting both farmed and wild salmon in BC.
Miller revealed that she had been invited in recent months to some farms in Clayoquot Sound owned by Canadian farmed salmon producer Creative Salmon, to see if she could help them get to the bottom of a mystery jaundice condition afflicting many of their fish. As an aside, Miller went out of her way to commend Creative Salmon for their open engagement with her, calling them at one point, “a very forward-thinking and cooperative company.”
Her experience with the rest of the industry has been quite the opposite. Miller related how Mary-Ellen Walling, head lobbyist for the BC industry, had reneged on a handshake deal made with Miller as she was about to take the stand the last time around at the Inquiry. Up until that point the BC Salmon Farmers’ Association had been obstructing all efforts to obtain fresh samples of their fish for testing – but in the glare of the media spotlight brought about by Miller’s appearance at the Commission, they’d promised at the last minute to share fish with her lab. Well, that didn’t last long, as Walling recently backtracked and refused to provide samples, insisting Miller stick to studying wild fish for now.
Miller related similar difficulties in getting samples from the Province’s farmed fish health auditor – explaining in tragicomic fashion how the samples they did eventually send over were thawed and thus totally degraded and useless to her.
Back to Clayoquot Sound and this new virus Miller discovered there. When she was invited to test Creative Salmon’s farmed Chinook salmon, Miller came up with two shocking findings: 1. A full 25% of these fish tested positive for ISAv (so there you have it – farmed fish in BC with ISAv, contrary to the claims of the Province’s fish health audit office and industry that after thousands of test over the years, they’re just sure it isn’t in their fish!); 2. A second virus known as piscine rheovirus – the cause of a deadly disease called HSMI (Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation).
HSMI has devastated farmed fish before in Norway – Dr. Nylund confirmed that it caused a 10% mortality rate and 100% morbidity in Norwegian farmed fish when it hit there a number of years ago. Miller not only confirmed the existence of the virus that causes this disease in Creative Salmon’s fish but subsequently found it in Fraser River sockeye as well! Scientific inquiries are generally staid and technical affairs, as anyone who’s attended the Cohen Commission much can attest – but this revelation hit the room like a lighting bolt.
If there is one take-away from this day of testimony from Dr. Miller and company, it is that we’re only beginning to grasp just how much we don’t know about these viruses, diseases and the relationship between them and farmed and wild fish. Which brings us to the key philosophical divergence between Dr. Miller and the Harper Government, which I’ll bet you dollars to donuts will find a way to get back at Miller and destroy her collection of samples as soon as the camera lights are extinguished and the buzz around the Commission dies down – an indication of how truly brave and rare a government scientist this woman is.
That difference turns on the Precautionary Principle – a point I myself raised on a conference call with the CFIA when their mouthpieces were telling media that “ISA is not in BC.” Miller poignantly summed up this divide in her testimony – and so it is to her whom the last word goes: “Their approach is to make sure that it’s not there; my approach is to ask if there’s any chance that it is there.”
If only we had more Kristi Millers and fewer sycophantic CFIA and DFO bureaucrats and fish farm flacks, perhaps our wild salmon would stand a chance.
The Cohen Commission continues its special hearings into ISAv today and Monday, before closing its doors for good.
Read this story form CBC.ca reporting on the revelation from the Cohen Commission into disappearing sockeye that ISA virus or a similar virus has been in BC’s wild salmon since at least 1986, based on studies of sockeye livers from that time frame by Dr. Kristi Miller.
Department of Fisheries (DFO) biologists have told a federal inquiry
that fish samples, dating back more than two decades have tested
positive for a potentially lethal wild sockeye fish virus — but that
fact wasn’t publicly reported.
Dr. Kristi Miller, the head of molecular genetics for DFO in Nanaimo,
told the Cohen Commission on Thursday that frozen samples dating back
to 1986 have been tested, and show infectious salmon anemia (ISA) has
been in B.C. waters for at least 25 years.(Dec. 15, 2011)
Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/12/15/bc-salmon-virus-claims.html
Read this report from the Montreal Gazette on the decision by Justice Bruce Cohen to re-open his Federal Judicial Inquiry into disappearing Fraser River sockeye next month to address the discovery of deadly Infectious Salmon Anemia virus in wild Pacific salmon.
“VICTORIA — The Cohen Inquiry, looking into the decline of Fraser
River sockeye salmon, will hold a special two-day session next month
because of the possibility a potentially lethal virus could be affecting
wild salmon. ‘Testing of samples of Pacific salmon from
two areas of the province has indicated the possible presence of the
infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus in several Pacific salmon,’ said
Brian Wallace, senior counsel for the Cohen Commission.
The
Canadian Food Inspection Agency is doing further tests on the Fraser
River coho and two sockeye from Rivers Inlet, which were initially
tested at the University of Prince Edward Island. Results are expected
in about one month. A chinook and chum salmon have also
tested positive for the virus, which has devastated fish farms in
Norway, Chile and the east coast of Canada. There are different strains
of the virus and, until now, it was believed the lethal European strain
would kill Atlantic, but not Pacific, salmon.” (Nov. 5, 2011)
Two items came across my desk yesterday that, taken together, illustrate just how embarrassingly backward our BC Liberal government is when it comes to matters of the environment.
One was a transcript from the BC Legislature, wherein NDP Fisheries Critic Michael Sather’s concerns about the discovery of a deadly European strain of Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISAv) in wild BC sockeye are egregiously downplayed by his Liberal counterpart, Agriculture Minister Don MacRae. The other was a story in the Seattle Times, documenting the calls for emergency action from 3 high profile US Senators in neighbouring Alaska and Washington State over the very same issue.
Here’s what Washington’s Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell had to say: “We need to act now to protect the Pacific Northwest’s coastal economy and jobs. Infectious salmon anemia could pose a serious threat to Pacific Northwest wild salmon and the thousands of Washington state jobs that rely on them. We have to get a coordinated game plan in place to protect our salmon and stop the spread of this deadly virus.”
Now here’s a transcript of what transpired in the BC Legislature on the same day US lawmakers were sounding the alarm – I’m including a significant chunk of this exchange because it so perfectly illustrates how out of touch this BC Liberal Government continues to be on the salmon farming issue, among many others:
M. Sather (NDP Fisheries Critic): The infectious salmon anemia virus has been discovered in wild salmon in Rivers Inlet. This is a potentially devastating disease that hasn’t been reported before in the North Pacific. The Chilean farming industry was devastated by this same virus: $2 billion in losses, production cut by half and 26,000 people laid off.
We have a lot more to be concerned about here in British Columbia as well. We have our world-renowned sport-fishing industry, our commercial industry and our First Nations food fishery.
Now, Dr. James Winton, who leads the fish health research group at the Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle, called this outbreak a “disease emergency.” My question to the Minister of Agriculture is: does he agree with the assessment of Dr. Winton?
Hon. D. McRae (BC Liberal Agriculture Minister): Well, we’ve got another example of spinning media headlines and fearmongering from the opposition.
The reality is this. The lab results were sent to PEI. They were not following protocol when, instead of actually contacting CFIA, they went directly to SFU, which in turn went to the media.
When CFIA then, in turn, said, “We’d like to do our test samples,” and said, “We’d like to test the fish,” well, unfortunately, I’m advised that the tested-positive results at the PEI lab were destroyed, and therefore, not available to CFIA….
….M. Sather: Well, in my time in this House that has got to be one of the worst answers I have ever heard. The minister is really making a mistake in going this route.
Those fish were tested by the World Organisation for Animal Health. Now, if the minister wants to quibble with the worldwide body that’s responsible for fish health, go ahead — fill your boots — but you’re making a big mistake. And you’re making a big mistake about not taking what’s happening to our fish, our wild fish, our salmon farm fish in this province…You’re not taking it seriously, Minister, and you ought to be ashamed and apologize right now.
Mr. Sather is right. Dr. Fred Kibenge, who did the testing, is a man of peerless credibility on this matter. Out of the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of PEI, he runs one of only two labs in the world approved by the OIE (the world animal health organization) to report ISAv. It is his lab that diagnosed and reported the Chilean outrbreak of ISAv several years ago. Mr. Sather is correct to suggest that questioning Dr. Kibenge’s credentials is a dead end for those who are foolish enough to pursue it.
As to Mr. MacRae’s other insinuations, I interviewed salmon biologist Alexandra Morton – who has been working with Professor Rick Routledge of SFU, who collected and forwarded the samples – by phone this morning and here’s what she told me about the testing procedure:
This past Spring, Prof. Routledge, concerned about low numbers of out-migrating smolts in the area of Rivers Inlet, collected 199 smolt samples to be tested at a later date. He had no idea at the time some of these fish would come back positive for ISAv.
The fish were stored in a freezer through the summer. In October the hearts of 48 of these fish were removed by Prof. Routledge’s assistant and sent directly to Dr. Kibenge’s lab (each test costs upwards of $40 and this is an operation with little to no funds, so only a quarter of the fish were tested). Under these circumstances, the heart was the most reliable piece of tissue on which to perform the testing.
Now, these are very small fish with very small hearts, so Dr. Kibenge used up all the tissue in the testing process. This contradicts what the BC Liberal Agriculture Minister alleged yesterday – that the samples were “destroyed”, which implies a cover-up of some nature. That’s simply not the case. As soon as the test results were confirmed, Dr. Kibenge alerted the CFIA (Canadian Food Inspection Agency), as per his legal responsibility.
Furthermore, earlier this week, officials from the CFIA showed up at Prof. Routledge’s SFU lab and confiscated the remaining 151 untested fish from the lab’s freezer. We can only assume they now have these fish in their possession, hearts and all.
All Prof. Routledge appears to have done is collected fish samples, where neither senior level of government would, and forwarded them to the top expert in North America for testing – which, in turn, revealed the devastating fact that a European strain of the deadly ISAv in now infecting BC’s wild sockeye.
Those are the facts.
Here are some more facts that shed light on the Province’s defensiveness. It is the BC Government that has been responsible for auditing fish health on salmon farms, up until the transfer of aquaculture jurisdiction to the federal government in January of this year. Incidentally, there is no evidence of any auditing process by any government body since April 2010 – when the fish farmers told the Province they no longer “required” its services (i.e., “Go away.”) And because fish health auditing is not a licensing requirement for the farms, they got away with it.
One man, Dr. Gary Marty, was responsible for the autopsies of fish from the farms in BC. The only person he ever showed his results to was Dr. Mark Sheppard, formerly of the Province as well. It was Sheppard who acted as the buffer between the raw data and what other government bodies and the public got to see.
The point is that much of what we’re discussing here is on the BC Government’s watch – which, like I say, may help explain their appalling defensiveness on the ISAv matter.
One other note, the person responsible for testing wild fish health in BC, Dr. Christine MacWilliams, asserted recently at the Cohen Commission on collapsing Fraser River sockeye, that if ISAv ever did show up in BC, it would be coming from fish farms – not from the wild. The fact that this is most definitely a European strain of ISAv should remove all doubt that this disease now hitting BC’s wild salmon comes from the fish farm industry.
What is gauling in the BC Agriculture Minister’s response to this crisis is his government’s utter disregard for the Precautionary Principle. US lawmakers are correct in their response – it’s time to go into emergency mode, not to bicker about testing protocols and worry about butt-covering.
Alexandra Morton is now calling for Dr. Kibenge to be provided the resources to come out to BC and set up an emergency lab on Vancouver Island to begin testing all species of wild and farmed salmon, as well as herring.
That’s a sound recommendation which both federal and provincial governments would do well to adopt post haste.
This is no longer a matter to leave to our backward, incompetent, self-interested BC Liberal Government. This is an international issue of grave import, as our neighbours to the south and north are reminding us. We have a duty to work with them to address this matter with the utmost sense of urgency.
As Michael Sather said, unlike the devastation of Chile by ISAv – which I personally documented in 2009 in my film “Farrmed Salmon Exposed” (Chile chapter begins at 2 min mark) – we have much more than the destruction of the aquaculture industry to worry about. This is about our wild salmon, which my colleague Rafe Mair aptly refers to as “the soul of our province.”
I attended a fair amount of the recent aquaculture and diseases hearings at the Cohen Commission into disappearing Fraser River sockeye – and like most of the Inquiry’s observers and participants I spoke to, I had a mixed reaction to what I saw.
I shared the consternation of many in attendance at the continued obfuscation from the scientists and managers of DFO, the Province and the aquaculture industry on the stand. Yet, I also believe the Cohen Commission will prove, in the fullness of time, a worthy exercise. Not necessarily because of whatever official recommendations eventually come forth from Justice Cohen, but because of the Inquiry’s many ancillary benefits.
There was a palpable undercurrent of frustration that ran through the Commission gallery during the two and a half weeks that diseases and aquaculture were under the microscope. Whatever sense I had personally had from documenting the salmon farming industry and its close-knit relationship with government regulators over the past several years, the reality revealed at the Inquiry was worse than I’d ever imagined.
There was the revolving door between the industry and government – on full display. Scientists changing their stories on years of published research, seemingly wherever it might have helped the work of Dr. Kristi Miller on a mysterious virus that may well be the “smoking gun” for our collapsing sockeye stocks. There was of course the “muzzling” of Miller (who was accompanied at all times throughout her appearance at the Inquiry by government bodyguards) from the highest echelon of government.
There was the revelation that government managers and industry lobbyists routinely use tax dollars to perform PR damage control with US retailers who’ve recently been visited by conservationists concerned about fish farms.
We saw industry and government lawyers doing everything they could to keep important data from the public. Then we witnessed them submit Alexandra Morton to hours of ad hominem attacks in a failed effort to smear her character and professional conduct on the stand…All of these tactics were fully evident to the public in attendance and elicited a fair share of well-warranted eye-rolling, grumbling, and even the occasional raucous moment (as raucous as you get in a generally tedious federal judicial inquiry where as much time seemed to be spent on procedure as the questioning of key witnesses).
So yes, it was a frustrating and at times disappointing process for those hoping to see the swift hand of justice at work (and efficient use of $25 million in tax dollars).
Moreover, doubters question what Justice Cohen will actually do with all he’s seen throughout the year-long Inquiry. Many observers and participants I’ve spoken to don’t have high hopes for a list of decisive measures that would adequately deal with the aquaculture industry and put our Fraser sockeye on a reliable path to recovery.
For instance, Justice Cohen won’t likely recommend the removal of all salmon farms from wild salmon migration routes. Nor would I envision any seismic regulatory changes at DFO.
However, there are some important recommendations the Commissioner could foreseeably make, points that were emphasized throughout much of the testimony he heard.
Before I list these, I want to be clear that there is much more to saving our wild salmon than dealing with fish farms. The lengthy Inquiry spent just two and a half weeks on diseases and aquaculture – short shrift for an area of such high public interest (the only days the Commission was literally packed with people). But an awful lot of data and other revealing information came forth in that short period and it was the only session that produced a suggestion of a “smoking gun” – one major possible cause of the Fraser sockeye’s startling decline. (see our previous reports on the Cohen Commission for a detailed discussion of these revelations).
The Commissioner will likely and should indeed make broad recommendations about DFO and government policy; he should also address issues like forestry practices, mining, hydroelectric projects, agricultural run-off and industrial pollution, transportation infrastructure and construction over critical habitat, the growing threat of impacts from oil and gas, climate change, ocean and river temperatures, feed and other ocean conditions, and, of course, harvest.
Clearly, as the Commission often heard, the health of wild salmon likely depends on a complex balance of all of these factors. But I concur with Commission panelist Catherine Stewart from Living Oceans Society, who said that her concern is for the factors we can control – the things we can do something about now.
So my interest here is what recommendations, broad and specific, can and should be made concerning aquaculture and diseases in the Inquiry’s Final Report. Here, then, are a few conclusions Justice Cohen may draw – each of which would be enormously helpful in terms of better managing our salmon fisheries into the future:
1. Ensure the Precautionary Principle is firmly entrenched in DFO’s mandate and is respected and observed throughout all of DFO’s work (including and especially aquaculture)
2. Remove from DFO its mandate to promote aquaculture, which is in direct conflict to its constitutional obligation to protect wild fish
3. Ensure that DFO scientist Dr. Kristi Miller’s research is fully funded and free from political interference – up until and beyond its completion
4. Require independent, random, transparent disease testing of all BC salmon farms – this data should be fully and immediately available to the public through an easily accessible database.
5. Selectively remove salmon farms along critical sockeye migration routes (even as few as 5 farms in the “Wild Salmon Narrows”, amid the Discovery Islands near Campbell River, would be a big step in the right direction)
Will Justice Cohen make all the above recommendations in his final report? Not likely (particularly the last item). But it is not beyond conceivable that he will make some of them – and that would be very positive for our Fraser River sockeye and all of BC’s wild fish.
But regardless of the Final Report, the Cohen Commission has proved valuable on many other levels.
First of all, the public and media got a clear glimpse of how closely the industry and governments work together. Never again will we accord even a modicum of credibility to any of their claims of independence. They have been thoroughly outed on this front.
Another extraordinarily significant development was the release of a decade’s worth of previously secret disease data from the Province and industry. This will naturally take time to unpack – but there are already some very interesting patterns emerging from the data to those who’ve been studying it inside the Commission’s cone of silence over the past year (more on that in subsequent columns).
The publication of all this disease data was a huge win for the Conservation Coalition, Alexandra Morton, and First Nations who’ve been fighting for this for years. So far, only Justice Bruce Cohen has had the power and gravitas to compel this information onto the public record, and that has been a leap forward for those battling fish farms on our coast.
Finally, more specifically, there’s the Kristi Miller story. We’ve discussed it a great deal in these pages of late – as has the mainstream media across the country and internationally. Dr. Miller became (this may be a stretch for some – but bear with me) the Valerie Plame of the Cohen Commission: a photogenic, eloquent, brilliant scientist whose story – as filled with intrigue and subterfuge as a Robert Ludlum novel – caused all kinds of problems for her government higher-ups and changed the tone of the Inquiry.
For one thing, Dr. Miller confirmed her “muzzling” by the Harper Privy Counsel Office from speaking publicly about her groundbreaking discovery. Emails and testimony from Dr. Miller also suggested her own senior-level colleagues have worked to prevent her from extending her research to farmed fish.
But most importantly, the woman tasked by DFO to use leading-edge genomic research to get to the bottom of the sockeye mystery showed she may actually be figuring it out. Virtually no one expected a “smoking gun” – even the possibility of one – from this Inquiry. Dr. Miller was the big surprise of the whole show.
And now she needs to be funded and free to finish her work. Alexandra Morton said it best to Justice Cohen while on the stand: “The only thing I want you to take from this is that Dr. Miller needs to be able to do her work – someone who is an expert in disease needs to be free to look at this.”
My ultimate judgement of the Commissioner may hang on how he deals with this very matter. And I’m optimistic he will do the right thing here. While his recommendations won’t be technically binding, they will carry enormous weight politically and in the arena of public opinion – which would go a long way to ensuring Dr. Miller’s work carries on as it must.
Could the Cohen Commission have proceeded differently – in a way that didn’t rush participants’ counsel through the questioning of key witnesses so briskly, that contained more independent scientists and less government-industry butt-covering, that made public access to information a top priority? Absolutely.
And yet, when someone asks me whether I think the Cohen Commission was a waste of time and taxpayers’ money, I say an emphatic, “No.”
Cohen was a pebble (maybe even a decent sized rock) tossed in the pond; its effects will ripple out for years to come. In the very least it has reinvigorated the aquaculture debate, drawn more media attention to the issue, and provided the public, conservation community and First Nations with sorely needed answers – as well as vital new questions – to propel their work forward.
Now they all need to keep up the pressure as we await the Commissioner’s Final Report next June – which, of course, will be far from the final chapter in the Cohen story.
The puzzle of British Columbia’s disappearing Fraser River sockeye is unfolding like a classical murder mystery. Suspects abound. Suspicion has fallen on such culprits as atypical ocean predators, unusual algae blooms, overfishing, inadequate food supplies, and threatening high temperatures in both marine and river ecologies. Each suspect has been carefully investigated and each may have inflicted some injury on the hapless sockeye. But the prime suspect is the salmon farming industry, the Norwegian corporations that have located multitudes of open net-pens in BC’s West Coast waters – many crucially situated along the migration routes of the victimized sockeye.
The salmon farming industry possesses the three primary characteristics that make it the prime suspect in this murder investigation: motive, opportunity and means.
The motive is profit. Corporations have discovered that open net-pens are the most lucrative way of rearing farmed salmon. When Norway tightened restrictions on its salmon farming industry because of the proliferation of diseases and parasites in North Atlantic wild salmonids, Norwegian corporations saw their profits being constrained by controls and costs. Their quest for continuing expansion and profit was curtailed.
The perfect opportunity for expansion and profits appeared in coastal BC. The province was eager to boost coastal economies with a new industry, the waters were pristine and cold, regulations were minimal, and supervision was casual, trusting and accommodating. The corporations, of course, promised investment and jobs. This new environment was open, innocent and unburdened by the experience and disasters that had occurred in the North Atlantic. BC was the perfect opportunity to expand the industry and satisfy ever-hungry shareholders.
Corporate character and history are also relevant in this murder mystery. When salmon farming was known to cause environmental problems in North Atlantic waters, when countries such as Norway, Scotland, Ireland and England all had negative experiences with salmon farming, the Norwegian corporations knew that suspicion would likely fall on similar operations in BC. Indeed, parasites and diseases have plagued operations wherever open net-pen salmon farming has been practiced. If corporate practice transferred disastrous viral infections to Chilean waters, then precedent and logic must conclude that these same corporations and operations could bring similar problems to the West Coast. So the corporate defensive strategy has been to separate the events that have occurred elsewhere from those unfolding here.
In a global village interconnected by information sources, however, this strategy is transparently facile and obvious. Numerous independent Norwegian scientists, with long North Atlantic salmon farming experience, have repeatedly warned that the same problems occurring in open net-pen operations there are inevitable in BC. A conspicuous corporate strategy of separating the two situations only arouses suspicion – although evasion suggests guilt, suspicion itself is not incriminating.
Neither is it incriminating that the salmon farming industry always professes its absolute innocence, invariably denying any connection between its practices and any harm to BC’s wild salmon. Its defensive strategy is to argue that no condemning studies are ever conclusive – even though many sea lice studies have repeatedly confirmed harm. Despite the overwhelming weight of incriminating circumstantial evidence, its corporate response is to encourage further investigation – ad nauseam. Repeat definitive studies. Get more data. Quibble about details. Solicit contradictory opinions. “Me thinks,” as Hamlet said of his mother’s guilt, “she doth protest too much.”
No corporation engaged in a harmless practice needs a public relations company to polish an image, especially if that company is Hill and Knowlton, described as one of the world’s slickest “spin machines” ‹ the same one employed by tobacco companies to deny the cancerous effects of smoking, by Exxon to clean its reputation after its disastrous oil spill in Alaska, and by dictatorships to cover the blood and torture of abominable politics. Since the character of a reputable corporation speaks for itself, suspicion is automatically aroused when extreme measures are needed to improve a public image.
The last criteria for identifying a prime suspect is means – did the suspect have the capability of committing the crime? Open net-pens containing millions of salmon in feed-lot conditions undeniably pollute the immediate benthic environment with feces, waste food, antibiotics and the toxins to control sea lice. And the natural sea lice cycle, sustained every year by the migration of wild mature salmon to spawning and death in their nascent rivers, is broken by the continual presence of salmon in farms. The consequent damage to out-migrating wild smolts has been repeatedly demonstrated.
The latest and most serious evidence in the sockeye salmon murder mystery is the possibility that corporations have brought lethal or debilitating viral infections to the West Coast. Symptoms of infectious salmon anemia have been found. And Dr. Kristi Miller, a molecular geneticist who has been studying the decline of Fraser River sockeye – their diminishing returns happen to correspond to the placement of open net-pen salmon farms on their migration routes – has identified genetic markers that strongly suggest another unusual viral infection in wild fish. “It could be the smoking gun,” she testified to the Cohen Commission established to investigate the mystery of the missing sockeye.
Judge Cohen has been receiving mounds of information, including reams of data about parasitic sea lice transferring from farmed to wild fish, and now new evidence suggesting fish farms have imported debilitating viruses to the BC’s West Coast ecology. When his investigation is completed, he will deliberate and report on his findings. The prime suspect has not yet been convicted. But the mounting evidence is incriminating, and various accomplices are now implicated. The plot thickens.
Read Mark Hume’s take in the Globe and Mail on yesterday’s pivotal session at the Cohen Commission into disappearing Fraser sockeye.
“Brock Martland, associate commission counsel, set the stage for a
free-wheeling debate when he opened with ‘a big question,’ asking the
panel if they thought DFO could successfully both regulate and promote
the aquaculture industry, while protecting wild salmon stocks. ‘I
don’t believe that’s possible … those two [mandates] are in conflict,’
shot back Ms. Stewart, who believes the industry damages wild salmon by
spreading sea lice and disease. She said the regulation of fish
farms should be handed off to some other federal agency, such as
Agriculture Canada or Industry Canada, while DFO should be charged with
managing and protecting wild salmon.” (Sept 7, 2011)