Deadline Without a Roadmap: Why B.C.'s 2029 Transition Plan for Salmon Farming Faces a Reality Gap
With just 49 months remaining until Ottawa's 2029 deadline to end marine net-pen salmon farming in British Columbia, one question looms larger than ever: how, exactly, are we going to build what needs to be built?
On paper, land-based and closed-containment salmon systems seemed like the logical successors the Liberal Party dreamed of when the transition plan was conceived. They're biosecure and politically palatable. But a growing body of international evidence shows that these projects don't just materialize on good intentions and PowerPoints. They take time. Lots of it. (Let’s ignore for the moment that none-of-them have produced any volume of salmon profitably.)
Timelines for a few high-profile land-based salmon farms
Take Andfjord Salmon in Norway: nine years from company formation to first harvest. Salmon Evolution? Six years. Even in Iceland, where permitting is centralized and infrastructure is pre-built for industrial aquaculture, new projects average 6-8 years from concept to harvest. So best case in a streamlined environment, 72 months from concept to operations. That’s 23 more months than we have before net pen jobs and economic impacts disappear.
British Columbia, meanwhile, has neither the permitting velocity nor the industrial base to match those conditions. The North Island's electrical grid is already constrained. Barge logistics are weather-dependent. And many remote sites lack basic infrastructure like year-round road access, freshwater supply, or housing for skilled trades.
Moreover, two Canadian case studies—Cooke's Bayside project in New Brunswick and Mowi's proposed site at Indian Head, Newfoundland—illustrate the grind. Both were announced years ago and have yet to reach full operations, despite being in jurisdictions more aquaculture-friendly than B.C.
Here's the critical mismatch: Ottawa has set a deadline, but it has not yet supplied the enabling policy, funding, or infrastructure to make that deadline achievable. Developers face 24-36 months just to get through feasibility and permitting. Construction adds another 2-3 years. Only then does the biology begin—and that grow-out phase takes 12-18 months. As a chef’s kiss, closed containment licenses are only issued for 9 years (as of July 1st, 2024). Given Canada’s woeful track record on aquaculture licenses in BC, who will pony-up several hundred million dollars to construct a facility that may be knee-capped after nine years by federal fiat?
Current process for permitting a land-based HFT farm in BC
In other words, if B.C. wants to see first harvests from closed-containment systems before 2029, those projects will need to be permitted and financed by 2026. That's an aggressive timeline even under optimal conditions—which British Columbia does not currently enjoy.
This isn't just a challenge of timelines; it's a challenge of physics, logistics, and political will. A salmon farm is not a pop-up tent. It's a multi-year civil and biological system with dozens of interlocking dependencies. Without serious investment in grid upgrades, permitting reform, and site development, the gap between ambition and reality will continue to widen.
Ending marine net-pen farming may be the policy. But without a credible path forward, it risks becoming a de facto ban on local production—outsourcing both the protein and the economic activity to jurisdictions that were more honest about what it takes to build.
For B.C. to lead, it first needs to build the road it's asking producers to travel. And right now, that road remains mostly imaginary.
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