Canada failing its oceans, biodiversity panel finds

An expert panel investigating the state of Canadian marine biodiversity has accused the government of failing to protect the country's oceans, leaving marine life threatened and the nation's ocean species at risk. 

The panel was commissioned by the Royal Society of Canada in 2009 to review the effects of climate change, fishing and aquaculture on the ability of Canada's oceans to sustain and restore marine populations.

Announcing the panel's findings in Vancouver on Thursday, Prof. Jeffrey Hutchings said the government had failed to meet national and international commitments to sustain marine biodiversity over many years.

"Twenty years after the collapse of the northern cod fishery, we don't have a target for a recovery. How is that possibly consistent with responsible management of our oceans?

"It doesn't stand up nationally, it doesn't stand up internationally — but that is where we are, 20 years later," he said.

Risk to Chinook salmon

The panel found the foundation of Canada's ocean legislation, the 1868 Fisheries Act, outdated and discovered the 1996 Oceans Act, designed to help Canada move towards sustainable ocean management, has not been implemented.

"It leaves huge discretionary powers to the minister of Fisheries and Oceans, who is given no science-based guidelines, targets or principles, " the report said.

"The panel found not lack of knowledge or lack of sound policy, but a consistent, disheartening lack of action on well-established knowledge and best-practice and policies, some of which have been around for years."

Among the species the panel lists at risk of extinction is the Chinook salmon, which it claims is threatened by the effect of climate change on mountain streams, no longer a habitable environment for the juvenile fish.

The report also highlights the potential of fish farming to accelerate the spread of parasites and diseases and undermine wild species by interbreeding.