Internal government documents released under the Access to Information Act call into question the integrity of the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) – again. Given the disastrous state of Pacific wild salmon populations, Trudeau's government is at risk of presiding over the collapse of wild salmon and a repeat of the large-scale impact to Canadians caused by the collapse of the North Atlantic cod. In both cases integrity of DFO science is at the epicentre.Out of concern for salmon stocks, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tasked Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray via his Mandate Letter, to develop a:“responsible plan to transition from open net-pen salmon farming in coastal British Columbia waters by 2025”.DFO provided a transition document to First Nations. Some First Nations have salmon farms in their territory. Many others have rights to salmon that are exposed to the farms as they migrate, in particular, First Nations of the Fraser River watershed.The Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) provides science advice to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Their policy promises:“Scientific integrity and objectivity are critical elements of all stages of the CSAS science peer review process, …”The integrity of this Secretariat was pointedly called into question in testimony from multiple Canadian academics at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans (FOPO), specifically in their assessment of risk from industrial salmon farms to wild salmon.On January 24, 2023, the BC Salmon Farmers Association issued a media release stating:“the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) concludes that sea lice on farm-raised salmon does not impact sea lice levels on wild juvenile salmon in British Columbia.”This result runs counter to 20-years of peer-reviewed sea lice research published by Canada's major universities.2023 is a critical year for the future of open-net pen salmon farming in British Columbia. In December 2020 the previous Minister of Fisheries, Bernadette Jordan prohibited restocking of 19 salmon farms in the Discovery Islands on the Fraser River salmon migration route. The Norwegian-based industry sued her and won on procedural fairness. This means Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray must make the decision again.On January 26, two days after the BC Salmon Farmers Association released the Sea Lice CSAS report, we contacted the lead DFO Scientist involved, copying the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, members of FOPO, Minister Joyce Murray and Canada's Chief Science Advisor with questions about the two different versions of the research behind the Sea Lice CSAS report that appear in the 838 page document release.The March 9, 2022, the research concludes farm lice are infecting wild salmon. Then on May 19, 2022, a key sentence was struck out of this document and text added altering the conclusions to state: infection of the wild salmon “could not be explained” by the lice in the farms.The CSAS released to the media with the same authors, a similar title and reporting on the same data went further – “No statistically significant association” was found between sea lice in salmon farms and infestation of wild salmon. What concerns us greatly is that the 838 pages of internal correspondence that accompanied these documents includes the actual test results, which support the original March 9, 2022 conclusions implicating salmon farms in lice infestation of young wild salmon. DFO found strong statistical association between salmon farms and sea lice infestation of young wild salmon, but the final report states the opposite.The DFO salmon farm transition document provided to First Nations promises transparency, accountability and rebuilding of trust between Canada and First Nations. The First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance over 60 nations strong – put DFO on notice on January 30, 2023. They expect DFO to provide the data used in the Sea Lice CSAS report to a First Nation selected panel of scientists who will be tasked to investigate:
- whether the data supports the CSAS conclusions; and,
- the inexplicable edits that appear in the May 19, 2022 document.