What the hell is in it for us?
I hate to sound ungracious towards our friends and neighbours by asking that question but it’s occurred to me quite often and I, for one, would like an answer.
With fish farms, what the hell is in it for us?
Over 90% of the farms are foreign-owned . The license fees we collect are like a handful of sand is to Vancouver’s beaches. Our wild salmon are destroyed, the environment desecrated, and the loot all goes to big companies and their shareholders, mostly in Norway. Furthermore, because these companies are from out of province they don’t give a fiddler’s fart how much damage they do.
Jobs?
A few caretakers and that’s it.
We take all the risks, we take the certain environmental losses and they get all the money!
Whoops, I forgot that there is a BC beneficiary – the Liberal Party of BC and Gordon (Pinocchio) Campbell.
With pipelines shipping oil from the Tar Sands to Kitimat for passage through our waters – what the hell is in it for us?
The oil comes from Alberta so that only the Alberta and Federal governments get any royalties and other taxes – except maybe for the peppercorn rent for the pipeline right-of-way. We run many real risks in taking this filthy stuff over our province, through our delicate habitat, then shipping it down the most treacherous part of our coast and get nothing for it!
We have to do the policing for sabotage, terrorist attacks, or plain misadventure since Enbridge sure isn’t going to. And based on their track record, who would want them to be our watchdogs?
When the damage is done – and it will happen – we’ll have to bear the cost since Enbridge sure isn’t BP and a big loss could bankrupt them.
These questions apply to the oil presently being piped down to tankers in Burrard Inlet putting not only Vancouver Harbour at risk but all the BC coastline they sail past.
Moreover, as with fish farms, these companies are from out of province and don’t give a damn for our environment.
What’s in that for us?
Some rent for the right-of-way?
Jobs?
Sure there will be employment to build the line but that’s short term and most of those jobs will be from out of province.
We take all the risks and they get the dough!
Whoops! I forgot Pinocchio and his trained seals. (See “whoops” above for details.)
Independent Power Producers (IPPs) are building their dams (they prefer we call them weirs) on rivers all over the province to make electricity.
What the hell’s in it for us?
These are all large offshore companies that take the profits while we inherit buggered up rivers. But it’s worse – not only do we lose our rivers, we pay for these dams because our provincial company, BC Hydro, owned by me and thee, is forced to pay these IPPs double what their power can be sold for. Since IPPs don’t make much electricity unless their river is flowing quickly, as in the Spring run-off when BC Hydro doesn’t need it, Hydro must export it at a huge loss! Our loss as citizen/shareholders!
We don’t need their power – indeed can’t even use it – but we finance their plants by making Hydro give them sweetheart deals, we get a fast bankrupting BC Hydro, and the money goes mostly to non-BC shareholders like Warren Buffett and General Electric!
What’s in it for us?
Whoops again! (See above re Pinocchio and his lickspittles).
We’re chumps! Marks! Rubes playing Three Card Monte at the fair! We’re being robbed blind then we beg for more!
Think on this, gentle readers – we’re taking a three-way financial hit and a huge three-pronged attack on our environment, be it our salmon, our rivers, our harbours, our coastline, and our wild habitat and, through our government, we’re begging for more!
But I predict a change, an awakening of the people. When the Premier and the Attorney-General instructed Crown Counsel to ask for a life sentence for Betty Krawczyk for disobeying a court order to cease demonstrating, using two violent pedophile cases to back it up, it touched a lot of nerves. A life sentence for an 82 year-old for protesting an environmental desecration? Likening it to sexual violation of kids? What has this government come to?
There will be civil disobedience in BC and it won’t be pretty. We’ve been lied to enough. Our heritage is bring ripped apart not with government consent but at its request.
I’m not calling for civil disobedience – I’m saying it will come because this disgraceful government has asked, no begged for it.
Rafe for Premier!
Until the mla’s are all part of the independant candidates coalition and our laws and rules of conduct are reformed, the outlook for our economy and our environment look grim.Not to mention the persecution of the weaker members of society that is sure to worsen under a corrupt and amoral government and government system that is not restricted to our own province.
Re: Leslie’s comments – I think Rafe was speaking in broader terms; like on the whole, what’s in it for us? There are surely about 2,000 anecdotal examples like yours (the number of direct jobs from the BC salmon farming industry) where there are local benefits; but weighed against the many more jobs in wilderness tourism, commercial fishing, and other wild salmon -related industries – not to mention the incalculable ecological costs of your industry – salmon farming pales in comparison. And besides the relatively low-paying local jobs (I mean compared with executive jobs at the industry’s headquarters in Oslo), the profits of the industry leave BC for the pockets of European shareholders. So, unfortunately, your job comes at the overall expense of the BC economy and many other families. That’s just a cold, hard fact – which I believe was Rafe’s point…Your comment about taking pressure off the wild salmon is an erroneous myth pedaled by your employers and refuted by quality science published in the world’s top journals, many times over. But hey, at least someone’s getting something out of this deal – it’s just that for the rest of us, what’s in it for us? A bum deal.
Excellent story Rafe. I wonder how long it takes before the people finally have their fill of the BS our own governments are dishing out to us?
It’s not going to be a pretty sight!
I work as a salmon farmer in BC. I was born in BC. My family is doing well, we own a house. There are thousands like me.
So, I will respectfully and quietly agree to disagree with you.
That’s what’s in it for me.
What’s in it for the fish? Well, aquaculture takes pressure off wild fish and perhaps the record pink returns last year and the record returns of Fraser sockeye this year are a testiment to that. No one really knows, but that is how I feel.
You feel differently, and again, respectfully, I disagree with you.
Leslie Banner, Nanaimo
No, I’m wrong. You worked for your pension and that last remark was uncalled for. BTW good article.
You’re not calling for civil dissent? Well, lot of other countries have realized that it’s one way which might worK. As you document so well above, BC has lost so much to neocons that it’s no longer a question of stopping them – it’s a question of getting our stuff back.
It defies belief that no one in Vancouver is down on that bridge protesting oil shipments from Kinder Morgan. As you said, if/when it happens none of those companies can even afford a regular cleanup. Oh, there’ll be riots when the bitumen rolls ashore on English bay, but by then it will be too late.
Here’s how they do it in one German city:
http://birdflu666.wordpress.com/2010/10/02/civil-war-in-germany-stuttgart-21-protests-rock-country/
Personally, I think there should be huge demonstrations every weekend until we at least defeat the bankers
http://comer.org/
and regain control of our province
http://powellriverpersuader.blogspot.com/
See here old chap: While you may be connected and have rights to a good living and pension, lots of us don’t.