Recent Decision Affirms Precautionary Principle

In May of this year, the Federal Court released a decision that affirms the importance of the precautionary principle in the management of fisheries.

The decision (Morton v Canada (Fisheries and Oceans), 2015 FC 575) comes as a result of a challenge, launched by lawyers at Ecojustice on behalf of biologist Alexandra Morton, to an aquaculture licence granted by the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (the "Minister") to Marine Harvest, a multinational seafood company. (Full disclosure: I assisted, albeit very minimally, on this file while employed as an articling student with Ecojustice).

Marine Harvest operated a fish farm at Shelter Bay, BC under the authority of a licence issued by the Minister. In March, 2013, the company transferred Atlantic salmon from one of its hatcheries that were infected with piscine reovirus, (PRV) a virus linked to heart and skeletal muscle inflammation—itself an infectious disease found in farmed salmon—into pens at a fish farm located within proximity to the salmon migration route along the Fraser River.

The...