Budget time is approaching in Nova Scotia, as elsewhere. Not just any budget time, but that special variety that precedes an election (this fall, I'd guess). You can usually tell by the tension in the media/political complex. The government is preparing for the buckets of vitriol that will fall on its head when it announces that it can't balance the budget this year as promised, and there's a howl over a $27-million accounting error in last year's budget.
Open-pen salmon farming in Nova Scotia is barely set up, and already it's a billowing disaster. The infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus has hit -- here as in many other places -- and reputable scientists are saying it may not be possible to grow salmon in open pens in these waters without the affliction.
The official solution is hardly convincing and somewhat startling. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has declared ISA fish fit for human consumption for the first time, and they're being processed and marketed. But the Americans don't want them crossing the border, and reputable grocery chains and restaurants don't want them either. Even if they are harmless to humans (if not necessarily to other fish), "eat sick fish" is hardly a winning ad line.