BC salmon farmers can go ahead with suing the federal government over cancelled Discovery Islands licences, a BC Supreme Court judge recently decided.
Mowi and Cermaq, along with a North Island diving company and an Indigenous-owned transport company, went to court recently to claim two former fisheries ministers acted inappropriately when moving to shut down farms in the Discovery Islands region.
Justice Lauren Blake ruled on April 4 that they have grounds to pursue claims of misfeasance in public office. She said the plaintiffs convinced her that “the ministers had knowledge, or at very least, were subjectively reckless or willfully blind to the unlawfulness of their conduct.”
The Liberal government has promised to shut down all conventional net pen farms in BC by 2029.
Blake’s full judgment is available here.
