Harper’s Underhanded Gutting of Fisheries Act Designed to Help Enbridge and Co.

Share

Here, ladies and gentlemen, are your Conservative MPs and their contacts:

Edward Fast – Abbotsford ed@edfast.ca
Dick Harris – Cariboo – Prince George Harris.R@parl.gc.ca
Mark Strahl – Chilliwack – Fraser Canyon mark.strahl@parl.gc.ca
Kerry Lynne Findlay – Delta – Richmond East MP Kerry-Lynne.Findlay@parl.gc.ca
Nina Grewal – Fleetwood – Port Kells Grewal.N@parl.gc.ca
Cathy McLeod – Kamloops – Thompson – Cariboo McLeod.C@parl.gc.ca
Ron Cannan – Kelowna – Lake Country ron.cannan@parl.gc.ca
David Wilks – Kootenay – Columbia David.wilks@parl.gc.ca
Mark Warawa – Langley Warawa.M@parl.gc.ca
James Lunney – Nanaimo – Alberni Lunney.J@parl.gc.ca
Andrew Saxton – North Vancouver Saxton.A@parl.gc.ca
Dan Albas – Okanagan – Coquihalla http://www.danalbas.com/contact-dan.html
Colin Mayes – Okanagan – Shuswap Mayes.C@parl.gc.ca
Randy Kamp – Pitt Meadows – Maple Ridge – Mission Kamp.R@parl.gc.ca
James Moore – Port Moody – Westwood – Port Coquitlam Moore.J@parl.gc.ca
Bob Zimmer – Prince George – Peace River Bob.Zimmer@parl.gc.ca
Alice Wong – Richmond Wong.A@parl.gc.ca
Russ Hiebert – South Surrey – White Rock – Cloverdale Info@RussHiebert.ca
John Duncan – Vancouver Island North Duncan.J@parl.gc.ca
Wai Young – Vancouver South info@waiyoung.ca
John Weston – West Vancouver – Sunshine Coast – Sea to Sky Country Weston.J@parl.gc.ca

Otto Langer is a highly respected fisheries expert who had a long distinguished career with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and got fed up with the politicization of the DFO. He was hardly alone – back in the early 90s at the time of the Kemano II fight, there were a number of DFO officers who left DFO by early retirement, being shuffled elsewhere, denied a deserved promotion, etc. One of them, Dr. Gordon Hartman (who like Otto Langer is an honoured contributor with the Common Sense Canadian) during the Kemano II scrap, along with several of his colleagues, gave those in the trenches the ammunition they needed. Alcan called them the “dissident scientists”, a sobriquet they wore with pride.
 
That time was when the reigning Tories, Mulroney the PM and Thomas Siddon Minister of Fisheries refused to hold public hearings mandated by statute, ignored a condemnatory report by DFO scientists, and gave the Alcan project the go-ahead. The DFO has never been the same since and let me give you a glaring example: the DFO is mandated to protect our Pacific Salmon and at the same time is mandated to shill for fish farms!
 
Mr. Langer has received and made public the news that under the Budget Omnibus Bill, the Fisheries Act will no longer protect fish habitat! You can read the statement from Langer that touched off this controversy here. Not only are they putting fish habitat in the hands of the pipeline builders and other despoilers of fish habitat, they are trying to slip this through in an omnibus bill to avoid a full debate.
 
These are the same bastards that have already privately approved the Enbridge pipeline by super tankers down our coast through the most perilous passage in the world.
 
No, it’s true that the policy has not yet been approved, but every utterance by Minister Joe Oliver and the Prime Minister has made it clear that they regard the Federal-Provincial Environmental Assessment process as a waste of time and that they should get done with it as soon as possible. They know that the BC government won’t raise a finger because the Clark government is grovelling and ass-kissing through the Prime Minister’s office over the $1.6 billion we owe the feds over the bungled HST mess.

The Federal government also supports the Independent Power Producers destruction of our rivers with amendments to the Navigable Waters Act and, yes, with money. West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country voters ought to ask their MP John Weston why he gave a nice bit of change to Plutonic Power (General Electric in drag) to help them ruin our rivers.
 
And, of course, the federal government supports the fish farms that are the ruination of our Pacific Salmon, the very soul of the province.
 
Read those names, ladies and gentlemen, and note that they, supposedly fellow citizens of BC, will destroy fish habitat, approve a ruinous pipeline by Enbridge through the Rockies, the Coast Range and the Great Bear Rain Forest, will fully support Oil tankers down the Inner Passage while increasing Tanker traffic through Vancouver Harbour, help big business ruin our rivers (made nice and easy with protection of habitat gone) and, like the barker in the amusement park, shill for giant Norwegian companies trashing our salmon with their fish farms.
 
There they are folks – the men and women you sent to Ottawa to look after our affairs.
 
Postscript – please go to our website and check out our list of contributors.

Share

About Rafe Mair

Rafe Mair, LL.B, LL.D (Hon) a B.C. MLA 1975 to 1981, was Minister of Environment from late 1978 through 1979. In 1981 he left politics for Talk Radio becoming recognized as one of B.C.'s pre-eminent journalists. An avid fly fisherman, he took a special interest in Atlantic salmon farms and private power projects as environmental calamities and became a powerful voice in opposition to them. Rafe is the co-founder of The Common Sense Canadian and writes a regular blog at rafeonline.com.

8 thoughts on “Harper’s Underhanded Gutting of Fisheries Act Designed to Help Enbridge and Co.

  1. I will also be sending a strong message to each of these people…and I will be forwarding this to my friends to enlist their support.
    Canada has been taken hostage by Harper and his minions and it is time to take back our country and our values as Canadian citizens.

  2. I will be sending a message to each of the MP’s listed even though I do not believe it will hold any meaning to any one. Like conservatives elected here and in the US it seems they have spines of jelly and/or no true beliefs worth fighting for if it comes to standing up against the leadership of their party. It is a sad state of affairs.

  3. There is no reason why these changes are needed. It only highlights the contempt that Stephen Harper has for MY country. Harper was quoted as saying that we won’t recognize Canada when he was done with it.
    What the hell was wrong with Canada before he started. It was a wonderful country.
    The Fisheries Act doesn’t stand in the way of development at all. You would need to be a blind fool to believe that it does. It only stands in the way of very bad developments that should never proceed (Prosperity Mine/Fish Lake).

  4. A lot of people may not realise one of the main deciding factors to allow fish farms in BC was to replace wildstocks of salmon therefore making environmental impacts less stringent by changing BC’s entire ecological demographics. Therefore making room for more damaging developments in the future. This is just another stage along phases in place to ruin our province over the want to open damaging industry in the name of economic growth an the cost of nature.

  5. HARPER’S MESSAGES ARE CLEAR:
    1. THERE IS NO GLOBAL WARMING.
    2. THE HARPER GOVERNMENT DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT.
    3. THE HARPER GOVERNMENT DOES NOT CARE ABOUT THE FISH OR FAUNA/FLORA
    4. THE HARPER GOVERNMENT DOES NOT RESPECT NATIVE MOTHER EARTH.
    5. HARPER GOT INTO POWER THROUGH FRADULENT MEANS AND DOES NOT REPRESENT CANADIANS.
    6. HARPER SUPPORTS FOREIGN INTERESTS OVER CANADIAN INTERESTS.

  6. Our short term hope to stop the pipeline through the Skeena is with First Nations. The only way to stop changes to the Fisheries Act is to get Conservative voters to care. The Harper majority is unlikely to listen to the rabble.

  7. enter your message here…omgosh mr. mair “I” did “NOT” send them there nor would i ever, ever, ever! our m.p. ! our m.p. is the minister of aboriginal abuse, john duncan…not a chance he’d see a vote from me in this or any other lifetime, i have seen too many examples of his incompetence…mr. harper & his band of puppets needs to GO, NOW!!! thanks for your always thought provoking & insightful articles!

Comments are closed.