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Alberta

Montreal urban fish farmers say their Arctic char cuts greenhouse gases and waste

Published

2 years ago

7 minute read

MONTREAL — A warehouse basement in an industrial area of Montreal, near the intersection of two highways, feels about as far from a fish habitat as it gets.

But walk through the doors of Opercule’s self-described “urban fish farm,” and the unmistakable smell of fish fills the air. 

After donning rubber boots and lab coats, visitors are greeted with the constant hum of the plant’s filtration system. Inside the dimly lit warehouse basement, thousands of sleek, speckled Arctic char swim in a dozen or so round pools, their fins smoothly breaking the surface or sending up alarmed splashes as they scurry away from people who approach the tanks.

The business is the creation of David Dupaul-Chicoine and Nicolas Paquin, who met each other when they were studying aquaculture in college on Quebec’s Gaspé Peninsula. What began as an experiment raising fish in Dupaul-Chicoine’s garage has turned into a commercial operation that they expect will soon produce between 25 and 30 tonnes of Arctic char per year.

By raising fish on land and in an urban setting, Dupaul-Chicoine and Paquin say they hope to avoid some of the problems associated with open net fish farms, which are suspected by some conservationists of harming wild stock by spreading disease or parasites, or by escaping and interbreeding with them.

“We’re not trying to prove anything, but we’re trying to do things the way we think they should be done,” Dupaul-Chicoine said. “We’re raising fish to sell them and we’re thinking about every little step in the production. The way we deliver, the way everything is done, we try to do it in a more eco-friendly way.”

The business uses a recirculation system that filters ammonia and carbon dioxide from water, which is then reinjected with oxygen and pumped back to the tanks — vastly reducing water use. Their city setting cuts greenhouse gas emissions, as deliveries to restaurants can be done on electric bicycles. As well, they only kill fish once the animals are ordered, reducing waste. They’ve even replaced Styrofoam delivery containers with insulated cardboard, they say. 

Arctic char was chosen because it sells for a good price and the animals stay healthy in close quarters.

The only downside on the environmental front, they say, is that the fish plant uses “a lot” of electricity. Their business model, Dupaul-Chicoine said, probably wouldn’t make sense if it ran on coal; luckily for them, however, Quebec has ample cheap and relatively clean hydropower.

The pair say their biggest challenge was obtaining the necessary permits — a process that took them about two years after they started their business in 2019. Because it takes 15 or 16 months for a fish to grow from an egg to market size, their first sales only came at the start of 2023.

An indoor filtration system like theirs also needs maintenance and a constant stream of electricity. Among their most stressful moments was a two-day power outage during an ice storm earlier this year; they worried that their generator would go down and cause them to lose fish. 

“You have to make sure you have backups, and backups of the backups,” Dupaul-Chicoine said.

Grant Vandenberg, an aquaculture specialist at Université Laval’s agriculture and food sciences department, says land-based water-recirculation farms have some advantages over net pen farms — which are enclosed cages that float in natural water sources. Land farms eliminate concerns over environmental interactions between wild and farmed fish, and waste is easier to collect and can even be recycled into fertilizer for plants, he said.

However, land-based farms are more expensive to start and operate, and require more labour, machinery and energy than do net pens, Vandenberg said. “I think it would be very difficult for some to be able to compete economically,” he said, noting that consumers have the option to purchase imported fish produced cheaper in other countries or provinces.

Vandenberg said that despite the controversies, fish farming has an important role to play in preventing overfishing of wild stocks. Improving fish-farming technology, he added, is reducing the industry’s environmental impact. 

Just as agriculture has largely replaced hunting when it comes to meat, “we have to stop hunting fish as well, and I think the answer is to produce them,” he said. 

Fish farming will also improve food sovereignty, Vandenberg said, noting that Quebec — which doesn’t use open-water net pens — produces only seven per cent of the trout it consumes. He said Paquin and Dupaul-Chicoine’s operation in Montreal presents an interesting model because the plant’s proximity to its market reduces shipping costs and ensures fresher fish.

Dupaul-Chicoine and Paquin said it cost about a million dollars to launch their fish farm, which includes a processing facility, and they admit it wouldn’t have been possible without provincial government grants. However, they said they’re pleased with early sales, noting they recently passed the break-even point in terms of operational profitability.

Both said that, so far, they have no regrets. “Before this I had a career as a mechanical engineer and I decided I wanted a change,” Paquin said. “So for me, it’s fun, even though it’s hard.”

Once they’ve proved to investors and themselves that their business model can be successful, they’re hoping to expand into a bigger facility. 

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 13, 2023.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press

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Alberta

Danielle Smith slams Skate Canada for stopping events in Alberta over ban on men in women’s sports

Published on December 17, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

The Alberta premier has denounced Skate Canada as ‘disgraceful’ for refusing to host events in the province because of a ban on ‘transgender’ men in women’s sports.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has demanded an apology after Skate Canada refused to continue holding events in Alberta.

In a December 16 post on X, Smith denounced Skate Canada’s recent decision to stop holding competitions in Alberta due to a provincial law keeping gender-confused men from competing in women’s sports.

“Women and girls have the right to play competitive sports in a safe and fair environment against other biological females,” Smith declared. “This view is held by a vast majority of Albertans and Canadians. It is also common sense and common decency.”

“Skate Canada‘s refusal to hold events in Alberta because we choose to protect women and girls in sport is disgraceful,” she declared.

“We expect they will apologize and adjust their policies once they realize they are not only compromising the fairness and safety of their athletes, but are also offside with the international community, including the International Olympic Committee, which is moving in the same direction as Alberta,” Smith continued.

Earlier this week, Skate Canada announced their decision in a statement to CBC News, saying, “Following a careful assessment of Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, Skate Canada has determined that we are unable to host events in the province while maintaining our national standards for safe and inclusive sport.”

Under Alberta’s Fairness and Safety in Sport Act, passed last December, biological men who claim to be women are prevented from competing in women’s sports.

Notably, Skate Canada’s statement failed to address safety and fairness concerns for women who are forced to compete against stronger, and sometimes violent, male competitors who claim to be women.

While Skate Canada maintains that gender-confused men should compete against women, the International Olympic Committee is reportedly moving to ban gender-confused men from women’s Olympic sports.

The move comes after studies have repeatedly revealed what almost everyone already knew was true, namely that males have a considerable innate advantage over women in athletics.

Indeed, a recent study published in Sports Medicine found that a year of “transgender” hormone drugs results in “very modest changes” in the inherent strength advantages of men.

Additionally, male athletes competing in women’s sports are known to be violent, especially toward female athletes who oppose their dominance in women’s sports.

Last August, Albertan male powerlifter “Anne” Andres was suspended for six months after a slew of death threats and harassments against his female competitors.

In February, Andres ranted about why men should be able to compete in women’s competitions, calling for “the Ontario lifter” who opposes this, apparently referring to powerlifter April Hutchinson, to “die painfully.”

Interestingly, while Andres was suspended for six months for issuing death threats, Hutchinson was suspended for two years after publicly condemning him for stealing victories from women and then mocking his female competitors on social media. Her suspension was later reduced to a year.

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Alberta

Alberta’s huge oil sands reserves dwarf U.S. shale

Published on December 16, 2025

By

From the Canadian Energy Centre

By Will Gibson

Oil sands could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years

Investor interest in Canadian oil producers, primarily in the Alberta oil sands, has picked up, and not only because of expanded export capacity from the Trans Mountain pipeline.

Enverus Intelligence Research says the real draw — and a major factor behind oil sands equities outperforming U.S. peers by about 40 per cent since January 2024 — is the resource Trans Mountain helps unlock.

Alberta’s oil sands contain 167 billion barrels of reserves, nearly four times the volume in the United States.

Today’s oil sands operators hold more than twice the available high-quality resources compared to U.S. shale producers, Enverus reports.

“It’s a huge number — 167 billion barrels — when Alberta only produces about three million barrels a day right now,” said Mike Verney, executive vice-president at McDaniel & Associates, which earlier this year updated the province’s oil and gas reserves on behalf of the Alberta Energy Regulator.

Already fourth in the world, the assessment found Alberta’s oil reserves increased by seven billion barrels.

Verney said the rise in reserves despite record production is in part a result of improved processes and technology.

“Oil sands companies can produce for decades at the same economic threshold as they do today. That’s a great place to be,” said Michael Berger, a senior analyst with Enverus.

BMO Capital Markets estimates that Alberta’s oil sands reserves could maintain current production rates for more than 140 years.

The long-term picture looks different south of the border.

The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that American production will peak before 2030 and enter a long period of decline.

Having a lasting stable source of supply is important as world oil demand is expected to remain strong for decades to come.

This is particularly true in Asia, the target market for oil exports off Canada’s West Coast.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects oil demand in the Asia-Pacific region will go from 35 million barrels per day in 2024 to 41 million barrels per day in 2050.

The growing appeal of Alberta oil in Asian markets shows up not only in expanded Trans Mountain shipments, but also in Canadian crude being “re-exported” from U.S. Gulf Coast terminals.

According to RBN Energy, Asian buyers – primarily in China – are now the main non-U.S. buyers from Trans Mountain, while India dominates  purchases of re-exports from the U.S. Gulf Coast. .

BMO said the oil sands offers advantages both in steady supply and lower overall environmental impacts.

“Not only is the resulting stability ideally suited to backfill anticipated declines in world oil supply, but the long-term physical footprint may also be meaningfully lower given large-scale concentrated emissions, high water recycling rates and low well declines,” BMO analysts said.

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