Mainstream Canada's lawsuit against activist to begin next week



British Columbia’s (BC) second largest farmed-salmon producer Mainstream Canada is suing an activist over "defamatory and false statements" allegedly meant to damage the salmon-fishing industry.

Activist Don Staniford has vehemently opposed salmon farming for 15 years. On 16 January, he will face a defamation lawsuit.

He would have to pay as much as CAD 125,000 if he loses, reports The Globe and Mail.

He said he will not be intimidated.

“This is about justice for wild salmon and freedom of speech,” he told, Vancouver Province reports. “I think the Norwegian government [the largest shareholder in Mainstream’s parent company] has made a fatal error here.”

Mainstream’s lawsuit also claims that Staniford’s Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture (GAIAA) campaign is intended to hold back the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) pending certification for farmed salmon.

“The fact that they’re suing me in the first place speaks volumes about the GAIAA campaign,” said Staniford.

The statement of claim, filed in BC Supreme Court in July, targets the activist’s use of anti-aquaculture graphics that imitate health warnings on cigarette packs initiated around 31 January 2011.

The graphics include warnings such as, “Salmon Farming Kills Like Smoking” and “Smoke on the Water, Cancer on the Coast.”

“Some of the actions of the tobacco industry over the last 30 years have been to smear the science and deny the scientific impacts of smoking,” Staniford explained. “The salmon-farming industry has pursued the same tactics.”

The lawsuit seeks a permanent injunction to keep Staniford from writing, printing or broadcasting criticism of Mainstream Canada henceforth.

“These statements that Mr Staniford has used are styled after those kind of health warnings as though the salmon-farming industry and farmed salmon are so dangerous that they require a health warning and are going to make people sick. … That's what this case is about,” Mainstream Canada's lawyer David Wotherspoon said.

Staniford believes the lawsuit could be a turning point for the province’s fraught wild salmon stocks.

“People have to ask the question: Do you want wild salmon, the icon for British Columbia, or do you want farmed Atlantic salmon, controlled by a foreign corporation?” he asked.

Related article:

- Mainstream begins legal proceedings against anti-industrial aquaculture alliance

By Natalia Real
editorial@fis.com
www.fis.com