What Happens When Policy Decisions Get Ahead of the Science?

A recent opinion piece in National Newswatch, How to Kill an Industry: An Ottawa Field Guide to Misguided Policy, raises a question that deserves more attention across Canada’s aquaculture sector: What happens when policy decisions get ahead of the science?

The debate surrounding salmon aquaculture in British Columbia is complex. There are legitimate environmental concerns, competing interests, Indigenous perspectives, economic considerations and questions about how aquaculture should operate in sensitive marine environments.

But underneath all of those debates is something that should be relatively straightforward: Major decisions should be informed by the best available scientific evidence.

Environmental and biological policy rarely comes with a simple yes-or-no answer. Studies can conflict,variables cannot always be controlled and important questions may remain understudied. That uncertainty is not a weakness of science; it is part of how science works.

Good scientific practice acknowledges uncertainty rather than pretending it does not exist. Researchers identify what is known, what is unknown, how strong the evidence is and what additional information is needed.

Policy should operate in much the same way. If evidence demonstrates a significant risk, policy should respond to that evidence. If evidence is inconclusive, the appropriate response may be additional research, monitoring and adaptive management. And if evidence does not support a particular conclusion, we should be careful about treating that conclusion as scientific fact simply because it is repeated often enough. This is where the discussion becomes particularly important.

The precautionary principle has an important role in environmental management. Waiting for absolute certainty before responding to a credible and potentially serious risk would be irresponsible. But if uncertainty alone can justify any policy outcome, evidence loses its ability to shape the decision.

The standard effectively becomes impossible to meet: demonstrate that there is no risk, rather than demonstrate what the actual risk is. That is not how most scientific questions are answered.

Science is about understanding probabilities, relationships, mechanisms, impacts and risk. It is about continuously improving our understanding as new evidence becomes available.

Another important distinction is between scientific evidence and arguments built around that evidence.Scientists can disagree. Researchers can interpret the same evidence differently. New studies can challenge established conclusions. That is healthy. But scientific findings should not be confused with advocacy positions.

A campaign can make a compelling argument without that argument becoming a scientific conclusion. A widely repeated claim does not become evidence simply through repetition. And a politically convenient interpretation of a study does not necessarily reflect what the study actually found.

A decision to restrict or eliminate an industry can affect investment, employment, food production, rural and coastal communities, research capacity and technological development. Those consequences should be part of the conversation too.

Perhaps the most important characteristic of a science-informed policy is that it should be capable of changing when the evidence changes. If new research demonstrates that a perceived risk is greater than previously understood, policy should be able to respond. But the reverse should also be true. If additional research demonstrates that a risk is lower than previously believed, or that a mitigation strategy is effective, policy should be able to respond to that evidence as well.

That is not inconsistency. That is evidence-based decision-making.

Too often, however, once a policy direction has been established, the science can become secondary. Research is used to support an existing position rather than to test whether that position is correct and that should concern anyone working in a science-based industry.

Aquaculture is a science-driven industry. Fish health, genetics, nutrition, disease management, environmental monitoring, water quality, animal welfare and production systems all depend on research and evidence. The industry should welcome scrutiny. It should welcome better science. It should be willing to change when evidence demonstrates that change is necessary. But that same standard should apply to the decisions being made about the industry.

If Canada wants to build a modern, sustainable aquaculture sector, we need a policy environment where scientific questions can actually be investigated before the answers are predetermined. That means investing in independent research, making data accessible, acknowledging uncertainty and being willing to change direction when the evidence tells us we should.

Science should not be expected to provide political justification. It should be given the opportunity to challenge the assumptions behind the policy in the first place. For an industry built on biology, that distinction matters.When scientific evidence becomes secondary to a predetermined policy outcome, we are no longer asking science to inform the decision. We are asking it to catch up.