As a country whose government is currently promoting Canada’s oil reserves and important mineral deposits in the north, Canada is no stranger to the benefits of investing in its natural resources.
Yet Canada, with its vast stretches of productive coastline, is missing out on an industry where it could become a big player; aquaculture.
Aquaculture is the farming of aquatic animals and plants, and it has grown into an industry worth hundreds of millions in Canada, and many billions worldwide.
In Canada the industry is established in B.C. and the Maritime provinces, and to a smaller extent in Ontario and Quebec. These aquafarms cultivate salmon, trout, shellfish and seaweed, among other species. Many familiar with the industry say the potential for growth is huge.
Yet Canada’s aquaculture industry as a whole has stagnated for the last 13 years, with Canadian production hovering around 150,000 metric tonnes. Meanwhile, global aquaculture production has risen by more than 6 per cent each year from 2001 to 2010, says a report from the Agriculture and Food Organization of the United Nations.

Canada’s aquaculture production in tonnes: a 30-year review

Slipping in the global market

The Conference Board of Canada and the Macdonald-Laurier Institute have issued reports recently calling for a renewed drive to expand aquaculture in Canada, in light of rising world food demand.
“There’s such a huge world demand for seafood, for protein, and Canada’s missing an opportunity to participate in that production,” says Ruth Salmon, president of the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA). CAIA represents aquaculture operators, feed companies and suppliers, as well as provincial aquaculture associations.

Ruth Salmon, executive director of CAIA

Canada’s aquaculture industry has lost market share during its years of stagnation, Salmon says.
“There’s an opportunity to grow, to recapture a sizable portion of that global share,” Salmon says. “And we’re looking to try to work with government to try to allow the industry to grow responsibly again.”
There are several reasons for the prolonged failure of the industry to grow. Salmon believes the most important is inefficient government regulation, at the provincial and the federal level.
“[It’s] slow, it’s complex, it’s uncertain and it’s costly. There’s delayed decision making on access to new sites, delayed decision making on access to new fish health products and new feed ingredients. There’s so many things that put us at a disadvantage, because of our complex regulatory system,” Salmon says.
“We are governed by the Fisheries Act, which was an act that was created decades ago to guide a wild fishery. So it was never intended to guide an innovative food-producing industry like aquaculture.”
Salmon is quick to say that the industry intends to grow responsibly, and isn’t looking for deregulation – just legislation that is more efficient and appropriate to aquaculture.
“We don’t have our own legislation. We’re the only aquaculture producing country in the world without its own legislation.”
An example of possible reforms would be instituting multi-year licenses for farm sites instead of annual ones, Salmon says. Applications for new farm sites also take years to process, she says.
Under those conditions it’s hard to attract investment in the industry, Salmon says.
“Many of my companies, my members are investing in other countries and money is flowing outside of Canada into other countries because it’s easier to do business in other countries than it is in Canada.”

World aquaculture market and producers in tonnes (2011)

Finding the funds

Research is another important industry priority where Canada has fallen behind. Improving current industry techniques and diversifying the range of species currently being cultivated requires an immense amount of scientific research, says Bill Pennell, a professor at the Centre for Shellfish Research at Vancouver Island University.
Unlike salmon farming, which did have periods of growth in the 80’s and 90’s, the shellfish farming industry has remained small. Many shellfish farms are small operations, easily driven under by fluctuations in market value and rising overhead costs. The shellfish industry, and the wider aquaculture industry in Canada, is also lacking in research capacity.
“I’m talking about scientific and tactical research to make the industry more profitable,” Pennell says.
This could take the form of improved hatching and rearing methods for farmed species, increasing the number of fish or shellfish that survive to harvest size.
“The province doesn’t have anyone doing research,” Pennell says, speaking of B.C. “DFO has one scientist assigned to shellfish […] and then I think one or two technicians and that’s it.”
Vancouver Island University has just build new research facilities, Pennell says, but it’s a struggle to find the money to staff them properly.
“A lot of government funding has just dried up,” he says.

The need for social license

One of the key areas of aquaculture production in Canada is off the coastlines of British Columbia, in the Strait of Georgia and around Vancouver Island. British Columbia is by far the biggest producer of the seven provinces that are involved in aquaculture, producing more than half of Canada’s total aquaculture production in 2011, according to Statistics Canada.
Here some of the other obstacles to industry growth become clear. The great bulk of aquafarming in Canada is devoted to the raising of finfish – trout, salmon and cod. In B.C., most farmed salmon are reared to harvest-size inside open-ocean netpens. This has caused considerable concern that farmed salmon could spread disease or parasites among wild salmon populations.

Strong environmental movements have pushed back against industry expansion in B.C.
“They make it difficult for the politicians and the regulators to expand the industry,” Pennell says. “That’s another feature quite peculiar to British Columbia. The Maritimes don’t experience this quite so much.”
The collapse of the sockeye salmon fishery in 2009 exacerbated those concerns, and prompted a multi-year federal inquiry at the cost of $26 million. The final report, The uncertain future of the Fraser River sockeye, found no clear connection between salmon aquafarms and the long decline of the Sockeye fishery.
However, inquiry commissioner Bruce Cohen did state there was a clear risk of potential disease outbreak caused by salmon farms, which industry must take care to address.
Social license is another obstacle that industry has to tackle, Pennell says.
“Other users of the water and land, may not appreciate shellfish farming, for various reasons,” Pennell says. An example of this is Baynes Sound, on the coast of B.C. Its waters are “incredibly productive” and are very intensely farmed by the shellfish industry, Pennell says. It’s also a popular tourist attraction, and upland residents have been asking local government for several years to stop the industry from future expansion.
“People have come to retire there, people have built fancy homes. It’s a great mix of people, of communities. And some of them don’t like shellfish farming,” Pennell says.
“In the long run, if the shellfish industry is to expand and prosper, it’s going to have to have people on its side.”

The need for change in Canadian aquaculture

A challenging regulatory environment, a deficiency in research and a lack of social license have held the aquaculture industry back in Canada.
But for her part, Ruth Salmon thinks that positive legislative change could be on its way, now that third-party organizations like the Conference Board of Canada are stepping in to speak in favour of industry expansion.
“I think it’s only now that a bunch of factors are sort of coming into place. It’s been a long enough time now that we’ve not increased production that it’s now a serious trend, it’s not a blip. So the fact that it’s been over a decade has resonated with politicians.”
“We’ve been encouraged by the dialogue and the interest in moving forward.”

As we inch closer to the 2014 municipal election, local politicians are on double duty – fulfilling their roles as city councillors and mayor, while positioning themselves to start campaigning as early as January 2, provided they immediately register as candidates. As with any election, getting voters to the polls is essential.

But voter turnout in Ottawa’s last three municipal elections has been mediocre at best. In 2003, only 33 per cent of Ottawans voted in the municipal election. 2006 was a good year, with 54 per cent of eligible voters casting a ballot. Numbers slid by nearly 20 per cent, though, in the 2010 election, when just 44 per cent of eligible voters showed up to vote. This information was gleaned from analysis done using municipal elections data available on the City of Ottawa website.

Overall, Ottawa compares fairly well to other major cities in Canada. In the recent Montreal mayoral election, around whose candidates there was particularly heated debate, only 43 per cent of voters had their say. Fifty-three per cent of Torontonians cast ballots in the 2010 municipal election, electing Rob Ford in what was also a controversial election. Even the 2010 Ottawa elections were intense, when there was a mayoral showdown between ex-Ottawa-mayors Jim Watson and Larry O’Brien. Yet, the voter turnout still slipped.

This goes to show controversy doesn’t necessarily mean more voters hitting the polls, making it difficult to predict voter turnout in municipal elections. Ottawa’s extreme fluctuation in voter turnout between 2003 and 2010 leaves some experts scratching their heads to come up with innovative ways to engage voters.

Professor Alan Walks, who teaches political geography and urban voting behaviours at the University of Toronto, said instituting mandatory voting, like in Australia, is the way to go.

But political science professor Neil Wiseman, also from the University of Toronto, disagrees. He says he would rather have fewer people voting than force people who have not educated themselves about the issues to vote.

Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson said that “during, but more importantly between, elections, it’s very important to speak to residents in their communities about what they want to see for our city.” He also pointed to using social media as a way to “take part in discussions where they are already taking place.”

While that is a unique suggestion and one that is not often heard from academics on the subject, the debate over how and if we should try to engage new voters isn’t a new one. But all of this still begs the questions: Why do, at best, only 50-odd per cent of eligible voters actually vote? What motivates someone – or dissuades them – to vote?

Municipal elections expert from Carleton University, Katherine Graham, says she believes candidates’ lack of party affiliations plays a major role in why people don’t feel the same need to vote in municipal elections as they do in provincial or federal elections.

Voter turnout in the 2011 federal election was still weak, with 61 per cent of eligible voters turning up to vote. This is still marginally better than Ottawa’s municipal turnout. Provincially, the 2011 Ontario election brought the worst voter turnout in the province’s history, with only 49 per cent turnout. Still, the province’s lowest is much higher -16 percentage points higher – than that of Ottawa.

In federal and provincial politics, there can also be a tendency to vote for a party in order to keep an opposing party out of office. Without parties to, effectively, vote against in municipal elections, voters may see themselves voting in favour of someone. Voters may feel less passionate about a candidate than they do about not seeing another candidate take office. This could be another reason for voter apathy at the municipal level.

But if higher voter turnout comes at the cost of implementing political parties at the local level, Mayor Watson says he’s not on board.

“As we’ve seen in other jurisdictions, along with those systems comes serious ethical issues when it comes to fundraising,” he said.

Issues around fundraising and party affiliations took place in Montreal recently, contributing to the city going through a handful of mayors in the past year and several local politicians facing accusations of taking kickbacks.

But the biggest factors in what persuades or dissuades someone to vote tend to be education and income. In the 2010 Ottawa municipal elections, Bay and Kitchissippi wards tied for the highest turnout rates, at 51 per cent. Respectively, the average household income in those wards is $67,000 and $84,000. On the other hand, Rideau-Vanier ward, which had the lowest turnout at just 39 per cent, has an average household income of $55,000, according to ward profiles available on the City of Ottawa website.

“Older, higher-income, full-time employed, working in white collar occupations and particularly those with a university or college education” are the people most likely to vote, says Walks.

Still, it may ultimately come around to a simple sense of civic responsibility.

“Most research has found that those who vote consistently feel they have a duty and responsibility to vote. Those that do not – particularly young people – report not feeling that sense of duty,” added Walks.

So do municipal politics even matter?

To that, Mayor Watson says that “as soon as you turn on a tap, walk on a sidewalk, or take a bus, you are using municipal services. It is in your best interest to engage with the municipal government to ensure your tax dollars are being well spent and you are being well represented.

Of course, it’s clear why the Mayor of Ottawa would say that. Still, municipal politics are where people can truly begin to engage and hold their elected officials to account. Councillors tend to be more accessible than, say, the local MP. Their decisions affect citizens most directly and most quickly. In that sense, despite a plethora of well-researched theories, the reason for low voter turnout at the municipal level remains puzzling.

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While Rob Ford’s election exposed a deep divide in the way Torontonians vote, the embattled mayor may be overestimating the ability of his Ford Nation to get him re-elected.

“We have seen public attitudes about scandal change over the past 10-15 years, and we have seen a number of candidates who have been involved with a number of person foillibles pick themselves up and manage to get back in the game,” said Dennis Pilon, a York University political science professor.

Pilon says a lot of public perception around scandal depends on what the scandal is about, and how the candidate deals with the scandal.

“If it’s not clear that the politician is contrite, or they have a plan for dealing with their problem, then I think the public is willing to be an enabler,” Pilon said. “And there I think Rob Ford has not handled this as well as some other politicians.”

But Ford has always been a less-than politically correct character. He was frequently in the news as a bumbling mayoral candidate, making controversial statements and finally winning in an election that saw a giant split in the way Toronto’s downtown and inner suburbs voted.

Observers at the time said that Ford’s election victory showed how divided Toronto was. Several towns around the downtown core were amalgamated in 1998 to form the modern day City of Toronto.

However, the new amalgamated city does not seem to think as one. Here’s a map that shows how Toronto voted for Rob Ford in the last election. The boundaries of the former cities that made up the Toronto area are shown, and the darker the shade, the stronger the support Ford had in that area:

It’s clear that Ford received most of his support from the inner suburbs, while the downtown or ‘Old Toronto’ seemed to be opposed to him.

Pilon says that demographics in the inner suburbs may hold some clues as to why they voted differently from the downtown core.

“What we might be seeing in the suburbs is an older group of more entrenched citizens who feel very threatened by the rate of change in their communities,” Pilon said.

“So they’re seeing wave upon wave of immigrants moving into their neighbourhood and part of what’s happening with Ford Nation is a reaction to that.”

Pilon thinks that there may not be a significant entrenched divide between the inner suburbs and the downtown, as the elections may suggest. He pointed to the previous mayor, David Miller, who received more widespread support, and said that various factors like voter turnout and specific issues could affect election outcomes.

“We could speculate that things like the garbage strike, that had happened in the year before the election, that made a lot of people angry, and it probably motivated a lot of people to vote who wouldn’t normally vote in a municipal election,” Pilon said.

“Municipal elections, hard to get people’s attention. But hey, there’s garbage rotting at their doorsteps, so they were motivated.”

Pilon said he doubts those same people will be motivated in the next election – and here he draws a line between the “Ford Nation” and other voters who might have supported Ford, but did not necessarily constitute his dedicated Nation.

“It’s very important to distinguish between the Ford Nation supporters, who are a very particular populist demographic, and the kind of run-of-the-mill right-wing supporters,” he said.

Pilon said that while a lot of people voted for him simply because he was the right-wing candidates, and while they may have supported his policies and approved his budget cuts, they may not be as forgiving of his scandals.

“Even if he keeps his Ford Nation behind him, it won’t be enough for him to win,” Pilon said.

It’s a thought echoed by Nelson Wiseman, a political science expert at the University of Toronto. He says that a large part of Ford’s support was probably because he was the only major candidate from the inner suburbs, while the downtown had several candidates from there.

“If only 750,000 people live downtown and two million people live in the suburbs, and only one guy is running from the suburbs, and his house looks more like their own house, a lot of those people will identify with him,” Wiseman said.

He drew comparisons with similar situations in other Canadian cities, like Winnipeg and Ottawa.

“I don’t think the people who live in, say, Kanata vote the same way as people in Bytown,” Wiseman said, talking about suburban and downtown Ottawa.

“People like to focus on Rob Ford as a kind of lightning bolt that attracts all this energy, when I think what we see here is a series of unfortunate events, or fortunate, depending on your point of view, that then ultimately result in him becoming the mayor,” Pilon said.

ArcArms3

Bahrain, Algeria and Iraq recently became some of Canada’s newest customers of guns and ammunition despite their dubious human rights records or violent internal conflicts.

An analysis of federal government data has found that Canadian exports to those countries swelled by 100 per cent from 2011 to 2012, the most recent figures publicly available.

In that same time period, Canadian weapons’ exports also increased to Pakistan (98 per cent), Mexico (93 per cent) and Egypt (83 per cent). Respectively, those three countries face violent threats from al-Qaida terrorists on their own soil, a deadly government war on drug cartels and seismic political upheaval.

Though Canada’s arms trade is legal and regulated, analysts say these figures raise questions about the government’s foreign policy commitment to human rights, and its regulatory regime for arms exports.

“Diversification is a principle of business in this globalized economy. As we see western militaries decrease their defence budgets, military industries will be looking for new markets,” said Walter Dorn, the chair of international affairs studies at the Canadian Forces College.

“The danger is that the almighty dollar may become the predominant motivator in trade deals and therefore weapons are more easily shipped.”

The Canadian Press provided a list of questions to the offices of International Trade Minister Ed Fast and Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, but an emailed reply from Foreign Affairs left many of them unanswered.

Foreign Affairs carefully reviews all export of weapons to ensure they “do not contribute to national or regional conflicts or instability” or “are not used to commit human rights violations,” the statement said.

In all, an examination was conducted of 10 years of Industry Canada data on a class of exports that is made up of military weapons, guns and ammunition, along with howitzers, mortars, flame throwers, grenades and torpedoes. It does not include other big military equipment such as vehicles, aircraft and other advanced technology, which balloons Canada’s overall arms trade into the billions of dollars.

Last month, Fast announced that Canada was putting economic interests at the centre of its foreign policy. The shift to “economic diplomacy” is designed to increase trade and investment in emerging markets.

In 2012, Canadian weapons’ makers found some new customers, which offset a decline in sales to some major democratic allies.

Canada’s average annual exports in the sector averaged $257 million from 2003 to 2012, and increased four per cent in 2012 from 2011, to $251 million.

That modest 2012 increase came despite a noticeable drop in exports to traditional allies such as the United Kingdom (10 per cent), Italy (37 per cent), Netherlands (40 per cent), Belgium (87 per cent) and Spain (132 per cent).

Canada’s leading customer by a massive margin is the United States, where its annual exports have averaged $190 million over the last decade. Exports to the U.S. climbed nine per cent from 2011 to 2012, to $178 million, but that marked a drop from a high of $294.5 million in 2007 — also peak fighting periods in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Dorn said the numbers in question may be relatively small compared with Canada’s overall arms trade and the massive global industry, but they still raise a “red flag.”

That’s because Canada’s sales to Bahrain shot from zero in 2011 to $250,000 in 2012 while Algeria’s skyrocketed from $29 to $242,000, years in which both countries suppressed pro-democracy democratic protests, he said.

“It is really strange timing that Canada would be increasing a sale of arms or military equipment, let’s say, at this moment when Bahrain has been involved in violently repressing its own peaceful democracy demonstrators,” said Roland Paris, director of the Centre of International Policy Studies at the University of Ottawa.

Bahrain violently suppressed pro-democracy demonstrators in 2011 with the help of Saudi Arabian forces. Earlier this year in Algeria, a terrorist attack on a desert gas plant — two Canadians were among the militants — resulted in the deaths of 29 attackers and 37 hostages. Meanwhile, in Iraq, thousands have been killed this year in continuing violence.

Baird visited all three countries earlier this year, noting that Canada is seeking to make economic inroads with each.

Paris said Baird’s relative silence on the Bahrain crackdown in particular, “raises questions about the consistency of our policy and it suggests hypocrisy.”

Dorn said it is fair to ask — but harder to answer — whether weapons from Canada may have found their way into the hands of rights abusers, whether despotic governments, rebels or criminals.

“It would be shocking if Canada supplied arms to suppress a democratic movement,” he said.

“The Industry Canada data table doesn’t list the types of weapons that are sold. It doesn’t give any details so we are left to wonder what the weapons are.”

Dorn said Canada does what it can to prevent its arms from being diverted into the wrong hands by insisting that its customers sign end-user certificates that bar transfers. But the documents have been abused in the past, especially by some African countries.

“If people want to find a way, they will always find a way. You can’t have a foolproof system where no arms are diverted,” Angela Kane, the UN’s High Representative for Disarmament Affairs, said in an interview.

“It’s just insane . . . I also think about the humanitarian consequences. What are the arms used for?”

Dorn and Kane suggested Canada should stop its foot-dragging and sign the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT), an attempt to regulate the multi-billion dollar industry.

Dorn said the treaty would force Canada to tighten its export control regime on weapons.

“Our national controls used to be the best in the world, and we’ve seen a dilution of those national controls so that in some cases our controls won’t even meet the new international standard of the ATT.”

Paris said that fact that Canada has yet to sign the ATT “raises questions about whether Canada is drifting from being a leader to a laggard in arms control.”

Baird has said Canada wants to study whether the ATT would infringe the rights of domestic gun owners.

Kane said the treaty would not affect domestic gun ownership, anywhere.

Last month, when he announced Canada’s foreign policy shift, Fast said that he personally raises human rights concerns with his counterparts, but he declined to give specifics.

“Whenever we travel abroad, we raise issues of human rights wherever they may be appropriate.”

Downloading the government:

How Canada’s open data stacks up worldwide

By Erika Stark

The Canadian government’s open data initiatives rank among the top 10 countries worldwide, according to a recent report. But data experts and observers say that while the quantity of data made available by the federal government might look impressive, it still lacks a real impact on government accountability and transparency.

Open data: The practice that makes data freely available by way of portals, metadata, and search tools for reuse by governments, citizens, voluntary organizations, academia, and the private sector in new and unanticipated ways.

– source, data.gc.ca

Canada’s federal open data
The federal government relaunched its open data portal in June. Twenty-five government departments and agencies so far have datasets that are openly available through the portal. Of the 197,825 datasets available as of Oct. 31, 96 per cent are from Natural Resources Canada. The next highest number of datasets for a single department was the 5,396 from Statistics Canada. Thirteen departments, including Elections Canada, the Canada Revenue agency and Public Safety Canada, had less than 10 datasets each.

“The open data portal is a starting place,” said Jeff Sallot, a journalism instructor at Carleton University.

But Sallot said the portal still leaves a lot to be desired.

“I don’t want to dismiss it as window-dressing,” he continued. “I think that there’s a potential there and I applaud the government’s recognition of the importance of new, online ways for citizens for access government information.”

Tracey Lauriault, a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute for Regional and Spatial Analysis in Maynooth, Ireland, said Canada can “do better.”

“Canada, overall, is doing very well on the open data front,” she said. “We’re a rich country, we’re very evolved with respect to information technology and we can do much better.”

Top ten in the world

The Open Data Barometer, a global report organized by the Open Data Institute and the Web Foundation, ranked and compared 77 countries, with Canada ranking eighth overall. (The U.K. and U.S. ranked first and second, respectively).

The report broke down the rankings into three main subcategories – readiness, implementation and impact. Canada scored 79 for on a 100-point scale for open data readiness, meaning the country’s “capacity to secure and sustain the full benefits of open data.”

For implementation, which focused on the kind of data available as well as how accessible it was, Canada scored 69. Lastly, the country received just 52 points for the potential impact its open government data could have on a range of things including accountability, entrepreneurial use and government efficiency.

In the report, Canada scored well for openness and availability of data relating to government spending, public transport timetables, election results and map data. Conversely, it ranked poorly on land ownership, government budget and legislation.

Open data, not open government

More access to open data doesn’t translate into a more open government in Canada, said Lauriault. She said the muzzling of government scientists, the cancellation of a long-form census, and the lack of a research data archive demonstrate the government’s lack of openness.

“The federal government has released a portal, but it is not an open government,” she said.

Sallot agreed, also pointing to the country’s outdated access to information legislation. “On politically sensitive pieces of information, the government is not forthcoming,” he said.

While it’s not a catch-all solution, Sallot said increased access to open data can improve openness and accountability within individual government departments.

“The default position of every agency that is funded in any way by government has to be for openness,” he says. “Digital data is so easy to put out there. There were some actual physical limitations on the whole process 30 years ago. That doesn’t exist anymore.”

“If you’re a government agency and you cannot locate your data, you’ve got a real problem.”

Cities leading the way in open data

While the federal government might be lagging behind many of its counterparts in its open data initiatives, Lauriault pointed to Canadian cities as the “champions” of open data. Approximately 37 cities, towns and municipalities across the country have some sort of open data portal.

Provincially, B.C., Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories and Yukon also have open data sites. (Click here for a comprehensive list of government-led open data portals in Canada.)

SEE BELOW: Canadian municipalities with open data portals

(source: datalibre.ca and data.gc.ca)

“They came out the door first, they were the ones who did the first open data portals,” said Lauriault.

These smaller-scale data portals can be invaluable tools not only for researchers but for advocacy and community groups to make “evidence-based” arguments and decisions, says Bianca Wylie, the co-founder of the nascent Canadian Open Data Institute.

The institute’s mandate is to educate and connect stakeholders with open data in their communities. People looking for information on development permits, city planning or affordable housing might not call it “open data,” but usually, that’s what it is, Wylie said.

“To them, it’s just information,” she explained. “There are so many scales of what you consider data, a lot of the time it’s just information that’s sitting with the city. As an advocate, you want to make evidence-based arguments.”

While she applauded the federal and provincial governments and municipalities for their efforts, Lauriault said all levels of government still need to improve the kind of open data they provide.

“They’ve got some data, but they don’t have the hard stuff,” she said. “Do we fare well? I guess we do because we have lots of portals and lots of initiatives.”

“But are the really difficult data that we want available? No, they’re not.”