Article by Crawford Killian at The Tyee. New research offers more evidence that open-pen salmon farming is causing “major declines in wild fish populations,” according to a news release from the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform. Read article
Blog posting by Alexandra Morton. “The Adams River was glistening in the sun today. The water is clear and high. There were thousands of people along the banks. Japanese, French, Italian, Germany, Korean words were mingled with the rushing water.” Read article
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.
Story by Darrell Bellaart in the Nanaimo Daily News. David Welch of Kintama Research Corp.: “Most of the mortality happened after they passed the north end of the Island, so it appears to be a problem not in the Strait of Georgia. What surprised me a lot, when I looked at our data and the DFO data, it indicates the fish died in Queen Charlotte Sound. It happened within several weeks of passing through the area of the fish farms.” Read article
Article by Derrick Penner in the Vancouver Sun. Bruce Swift “operates an integrated system that produces around 3,000 salmon per year, uses its waste for raising other crops, and is heralded as the epitome of sustainable farming by locavore gurus (those who prefer to eat locally produced foods).” Read article
Article by Kate Larkin in Nature News. “Some 34 million fish are thronging the Fraser River as they return from the sea to spawn, federal regulators announced on 31 August. The event, following two decades of decline in salmon-run numbers, is taking fisheries scientists by surprise — and causing frustration across the fishing industry, which is largely unable to access the windfall.” Read article
Letter to the editor by Alexandra Morton in the Campbell River Courier-Islander.
“Your paper quotes Minister of Fisheries Gail Shea, ‘…it’s my understanding that the new regulations provide for much more transparency within the industry.’
“Well that’s nice, but our concern is not transparency ‘within’ the industry, our concern is reporting outside the industry to the public. Shea blunders on, ‘we may not get it 100 per cent right the first time…'”
Letter to the editor by Alexandra Morton in The Province. “Yes, there are many who wish the scrutiny of Cohen Inquiry would go away.” Read article
Article by David Olive in the Toronto Sun. “The Earth didn’t move for the global news media with the FDA’s announcement, but it should have. The profit motive being what it is, pressure will intensify for approval of GM cattle, bacon, dairy products and grains, which like GM salmon will be cheaper to produce and in much greater quantity.” Read article.
Article by Jeff Nagel in the South Delta Leader.
“The coho eat feed made mainly from locally sourced herring meal.
“No antibiotics or vaccines are used.
“And unlike ocean-based net pen farms, there’s no risk of pollution, disease spread, the proliferation of sea lice or escapees interbreeding with wild stocks.”