Canada must change management of aquaculture sector or slide into irrelevancy May 25, 2021 by Ron Doering There is no question of Canada’s great opportunity for oceans economic development, specifically its seafood development. Once the top seafood exporter in the world, it is now eighth in the world and falling. Even with this, the seafood sector, with close to 100,000 people employed directly or indirectly, is still the core of Canada’s blue economy. Aquaculture production has been flat for about 20 years. During this time, Canada has lost over 50 per cent of its farmed seafood market share to international competitors. such as Norway, Scotland, Chile and Australia. This is particularly galling because Canada has arguably the most ocean potential to develop its seafood farming sector in the world. As a comparison, Norway has approximately one-third of the bio-physical capacity as Canada for aquaculture development, but produces close to 10 times the seafood of Canada. I was a guest of the Norway government several years ago so that they could show off the excellence of their industry. The government had just built a huge aquaculture research lab. Their pride and support for their industry was evident everywhere.