Fish Farm Protest In Vancouver

Following is an e-mail from Alexandra Morton on a protest to be held in Vancouver tomorrow

To those of you in Vancouver.

The Wilderness Committee will be carrying our letter with its’ 13,000 signatures to Gordon Campbell’s constituency office. They have built a salmon mascot, Tum Tum who will join them and will be also delivering their own petition with 33,000 signatures on it urging government to protect wild salmon from fish “farms.” I am hoping to be there as well.

When: Wednesday, May 6th, 2009 at 12 noon
Where: In front of BC government cabinet offices at World Trade Centre at Canada Place, downtown Vancouver

It is remarkable to me that there has been no answer to our letter simply asking for the laws of Canada to be applied and I appreciate the Wilderness Committee delivering this in person. Many of you have received the same email from different Liberal MLA candidates saying that the Province is not allowed to interfere with the BC Supreme Court decision, but this is not accurate. In filing an Appearance they have given themselves the option to send lawyers to the appeal filed by the fish farmers. They may indeed have decided not to fight the decision, but why then has Gordon Campbell not answered our letter?

I am hoping that we don’t get to find out. We need someone in government who can answer a question asked by 13,000 people.

I learned this week that the U.S. Food and Drug Agency has a ban on importation of food products that have been exposed to the chemical Emamectin benzoate (Slice) that Canadian fish farms use to suppress their sea lice. Fish farmers use this chemical in many places where people collect sea food to eat and despite requests never post notices to the public so we could avoid the drug. There is an article on page 12 in Pacific Fishing on this:

http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/North_West_Publishing_Center/PF_May09_1280 <http://openpub.realread.com/rrserver/browser?title=/North_West_Publishing_Center/PF_May09_1280>

In a remote, wilderness so beautiful it captures your soul, I have raised my children on seafood exposed to a drug banned in the U.S.

Alexandra Morton


For anyone in the Vancouver area that has time and is concerned about our fisheries and habitat I urge you to attend this protest. We need action and we need it now. Gary E.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
05/05/09 Update: The Tyee is reporting that Alexandra Morton and the WCWC attempted to deliver 2 petitions with a total of 43000 names to Campbell at the convention Center. They were turned away at the door of our publicly owned building by some Rent-a-cops. So much for our open, honest government.

Time to Take Back Our Province