Concerned citizens and fishermen converged in Halifax from all over southwest Nova Scotia to protest the new salmon farm leases.
About 75 protesters gathered for an hour outside Province House in downtown Halifax to express their concerns.
“We just wanted to get our message out,” says Karen Crocker, chair of the Save our Bays Alliance. “There was lot of media there and hopefully now Nova Scotians are a little better educated what our concerns are and that we have valid concerns.”
Fishermen brought lobster traps, other protesters had placards with slogans like “Consultation means listening not telling.”
Residents from the Digby Islands brought samples of the slime and pollution they say comes from the salmon farm operating in Grand Passage near Westport.
Sherry Pictou spoke at the rally on behalf of the Bear River First Nations.
“We have a long tradition of building relationships with our neighbouring communities. I had the full support of my chief and council to go there and express our disappointment at the process – it really makes me question the whole process of community consultation. We have never received any answers to any of the questions we asked over a year ago.”
Pictou says the industrial scale of the farms is the opposite of what the Bear River First Nations are looking for.
“We want to fish commercially but we are looking for a way to fish a small-scale sustainable fishery.”
Pictou says she has little faith in the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture after ten years of disappointments.
“They have privatized the beaches, at least as far as depuration goes, and now they have privatized waters. I don’t know how they can do that.”
Nell Halse, a spokeswoman for Cooke Aquaculture, has said her company is willing to sit down and talk with anyone with concerns.
She says the leases off Long Island will allow the company to rest or fallow their operation in Grand Passage and “jumpstart” their expansion plans for Nova Scotia.
Cooke Aquaculture wants to build a modern hatchery, possibly on Digby Neck, and a processing facility employing 300 people in Shelburne. In all, their website promises 417 new jobs throughout the province.
Halse says there could be as many as 58 new jobs in the Digby area.
The salmon farm leases will cover a total of 84 hectares (209 acres) in St. Mary’s Bay and could hold as many as a million fish each but will probably only be stocked with 700,000 fish each.
Halse believes aquaculture and the traditional fishery can co-exist side-by-side.
"We have had an open policy to accommodating lobster fishermen to set their traps around the farms and in fact they choose to do so," she said.
The minister of fisheries, Sterling Belliveau has promised a third-party monitoring system will keep a close eye on the salmon farms.
“The company has to abide by the conditions or the lease will be terminated, though I’m confident we won’t be in that position,” Belliveau said “We did our homework. We’re there to protect the environment and the traditional fishery in a suitable manner.
“We made this decision in the best interest of the people of Nova Scotia. We listened to the fishermen and special interest groups and we have captured their concerns in the conditions of the lease agreement.”
The minister has yet to reveal what precisely those conditions are.
