Submitter: Amy McConnell

Community: Parksville

Date Submitted: September 22, 2023

Summary:

The Commissioner should recommend funding to Kristi Miller, removing fish farms from migratory routes, a separation from regulating and promoting aquaculture and no more funding to open net pen salmon aquaculture.

Submission:

To Justice Cohen;



Having followed the Cohen commission into the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon, I would like to urge you to recommend:



1. Kristy Miller be given funding to continue her research

2. Regulations for licensing sites of open net pen salmon farms to take into account the high probability that these farms will be releasing disease particles into the surrounding waters, that this will negatively impact the wild salmon populations, and that the farms must therefore be located off of wild salmon migration routes through narrow channels.

3. These regulations be applied to existing fish farms. Namely, existing salmon farms on wild salmon migration routes be removed.

4. A clear separation between the agency regulating aquaculture, and those promoting it.

5. No further government funding going to open net pen salmon aquaculture.



Respectfully,



Amy McConnell