BC Residents Don't Vote Conservative - No to Stephen Harper and Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg Seafood

British Columbia residents voted in high numbers against fish farms, more than 100,000 signing a petition to stop expansion, and to get fish farms out of out pristine ocean. See: https://www.change.org/p/restore-wild-salmon-ban-salmon-feedlots-in-bc.

The Conservatives, the Harper Government, did the opposite of what British Columbians want: they issued four more sites to fish farms in BC; they weakened the already weakened laws by bringing in new fish farm regs (See: my article on the recent Blacklock article: https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1880129387856188740#editor/target=post;postID=3089477178877178483;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=6;src=postname; and they issued licences in BC for 9 years.

All of these actions are against what British Columbian voters want: we want DFO and the government to get on with saving wild Pacific salmon, and protecting the environment by putting fish farms on land.

Of the other federal parties, the Green Party has a specific policy against fish farms and will get them out of the water immediately after the election. See: https://www.greenparty.ca/en/policy/vision-green/economy/fisheries.

Please note that as of September 1, 2015, neither the Liberals nor NDP have stated policies to eliminate fish farms from BC waters. Those who support wild salmon, do not vote Liberal nor NDP.

In a province with 99.8% of all the wild salmon in Canada - some 73 million before fisheries in saltwater - salmon are an important issue, providing along with freshwater fishing $2.52 Billion, and with another $200 Million if the Georgia Strait chinook and coho stocks are brought back. In other words, $2.72 Billion. See my Pacific Salmon Foundation Salmon Steward editorial: http://onfishingdcreid.blogspot.ca/2015/05/pacific-salmon-foundation-psf-editorial.html. This post gives you links to all the references I used to derive these figures.

By comparison, fish farms, provide only $469 M revenue, or only 17 percent of what we receive from BC wild fish. Their sewage is a $10.4 Billion cost to BC taxpayers and voters. The Liberals and NDP need to get out in front of this issue by publicly stating policy to get fish farms out of the oceans.

Stephen Harper Government Eliminates Environmental Laws for Fish Farms - Updated Sep 3, 2015

This graph says it all about where Norwegian fish farms in Canada (Marine Harvest, Cermaq, Grieg Seafood, et al) are going with farmed salmon, just as they have already done in Norway. Would you eat this fish that has ten times the cancer causing chemicals,dioxins and PCBs than any other food?

[Farmed fish at 41.6 picograms/gram and beef at 4. The information is from the EU and shows the chemical levels in common meat products.]

I don’t think so. But Harper and Gail Shea have just brought in laws that weaken already weakened environmental laws in Canada. See my post: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/12/summary-fish-farm-environmental-laws.html.

And see this article from the Huffington Post on weakening the laws: Seventeen ways the Government is Helping Kill Wild Salmon: http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/jeff-matthews/wild-salmon-farmed-salmon-aquaculture_b_7419712.html?fb_action_ids=1673064862922068&fb_action_types=og.likes.

And, the Royal Society issued a stinging indictment on the Conservative Governments record on our three ocean coasts in 2013. Now, Gail Shea is weakening the already weakened laws to allow fish farms to do what they want with chemicals. Look once again at the above graph. Now, Ruth Salmon, of the Canadian Aquzculture Industry Alliance, says: “The new regulations are an important step in modernization.”

WRONG. They are a step backwards, and an essential step toward Norwegian farmed fish that doctors are telling people not to eat in Norway. Her words are simply industry spin. It is not modernizing to allow the use of more chemicals. Particularly ones that kill lobsters, like cypermethrin, and others for lice.

Marine Harvest first announced in Norway it would not put smolts out because they thought they would all get killed by lice. Why? Because lice are resistant to all the drugs they use there. Cypermethrin is just one of those chemicals.

“It will provide greater transparency leading to increased public confidence which will allow the industry to grow in Canada.”Says Salmon.

WRONG. Go back and look at the cancer causing chemicals in farmed salmon. What is the case is that the public who have to live with fish farms overwhelmingly reject them, and allowing more drugs, will just make they want them out of the ocean even stronger.

For example, more than 100,000 British Columbians have signed a petition to eliminate expansion and get the farms out of the waters: See: https://www.change.org/p/restore-wild-salmon-ban-salmon-feedlots-in-bc. Even the aboriginals in Ahousaht, Clayoquot Sound, have launched a petition and have stated their chiefs let them down and they will not stand for another fish farm in Clayoquot Sound where there are already 22. See the post ahead of this one for the weblink.

The public is angry all over the world, for example, Tasmania, and Nova Scotia. Read this Blacklock article: Go to: https://www.blacklocks.ca/, and search for July 16, 2015.

FURTHERMORE, fish farms are not transsparent. It is often the spin that weakening the laws will make things better. And, behind the scenes, the fish farms lawyers argue against release of information to the public.

When I tried to get the amount of money that we Canadians pay to fish farms for their diseased dead fish, the information was held up for 10 months because of a legal injunction against release.

During the Cohen Commission the same prevailed. Fish farms lawyers argued against release of disease testing tables. Cohen required them, and then fish farms changed their tune and trumpeted about how transparent they were.

Then Cohen required the individual tables. Fish farms sent in their lawyers to argue Cohen had no authority to allow public release. He required them anyway. Fish farms are not transparent.

Oh, and 90% of DFO’s own scientists are against what DFO is doing to weaken laws and reduced science budgets: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/12/canada-strictest-fish-farm-laws-no-best.html.

And I asked the Canadian Food and Inspection Agency for the location of east coast farms with the worst disease, ISA. They sent a note back, Aug 7, 2015 saying I could not get this information without a formal freedom of information request. This is not transparency. Interestingly, it was from Dr. Kim Klottins, who on the Cohen stand got cornered into saying that the CFIA was only interested in foreign trade in BC fish farm products.

Ruth Salmon goes on: "There have been conflicting roles between the provincial and federal governments and this is going to clarify rules and responsibilities."

WRONG. In BC, all of fish farm rules and regulations fall to the federal government. There is no conflict. But, DFO, itself is in conflict, as pointed out by Cohen.

A senator, Thomas McInnis, NB, said: "it's difficult for me to believe that you haven't turned this almost entirely over to the industry." 

RIGHT. The main point is that there is no management of fish farms that hasn't been shown to be in conflict with them - federall, provincial, academics, testing systems and so on. This happens all over the world. An earlier post on this site pointed out that the NOAA in the USA's technical report could not have been more pro-industry if it had just allowed fish farms to write it themselves

McInnes goes on: "There is a tremendous public outcry of concerrn and uncertainty with respect to aquaculture."

RIGHT. This happens all over the world once the public begins to understand the environmental degradation of fish farms. See the petition link above..

The Kevin-Baker-Voakes article goes on to say, that MargotVenton, of Ecojustice, a BC environmental law organization that is currently in court fighting DFOand Marine Harvest's putting infected farmed fish in saltwater in BC: "The regulations seem to authorize the destruction of fish habitat [The fisheries Act also had section 35, 36, changed to weaken environmental laws] when that destruction is for the purpose of putting in a new aquaculture facility."

RIGHT. The fear is that fish farms will begin killing wild salmon because the new regulations appear to allow it. Venton also points out that there is no public release regulation, nor one on public release of the chemicals in farmed fish. And, of course, I have noted that fish farms are not transparent, and the regulatory agencies, the CFIA, for example, also require a freedom of information request, of which mine was held up for 10 months by a behind the scenes fish farm injunction.

The Baker-Voakes article goes on to note that 124 conservationists including six retired federal researchers petitioned Cabinet to withdraw the amendments, saying they were 'gravely concerned' with the consequences.

Pamela Parker for the fish farms says that: "These chemicals have been used in Norway and the UK for ten years. Canada is very late in approving any of these products.

WRONG. Norway lobbied the EU to allow chemicals in farmed fish some ten times above the same chemical levels in other farmed meat/poutry/dairy products. The above graph shows it.

And last year, doctors and scientists in Norway told Norwegians not to eat farmed fish because of the high level of chemicals in them. Go back to the Index to this site for weblink references:  http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/10/index-to-wwwfishfarmnewsblogspotcom.html. 

THE REAL SITUATION

Fish farms say that they operate under the strictest laws in the world in the country they operate in. Fish farms said the same thing in Norway, Scotland, Chile and Canada last year. This cannot be true because the laws in all countries are different.

Furthermore, Chile is publicly, widely acknowledged as the dirtiest country in the world for fish farms. Hence its laws can't be as good as those in Canada, or elsewhere.

But, fish farms argue for reduced strictness, and then use that from one country, they note the UK and Norway for example, to argue that laws have to be weakened in other jurisdictions they operate in this case, Canada. It is a race to the bottom, not 'modernization'.


Subsequent Additions to this Post:


WEST COAST ENVIRONMENTAL LAW GROUP ON WEAKENED ENVIRONMENTAL LEGISLATION

West Coast Environmental Law group's post on the environmental laws weakened by the federal government. See: http://www.blackoutspeakout.ca/cms/uploads/budget-bill-top-10.pdf. 

DFO CUTS 130 HABITAT JOBS

Not only have the laws been changed, but frontline staff have and are being removed from protection of fish habitat. In other words, the laws have been removed and the staff who deal with habitat issues have also been removed. See a recent CBC article on the issue: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/ottawa-set-to-cut-130-positions-from-fish-habitat-programs-1.1193488. 

In other words, conservation and protection staff are pretty much eliminated, so those weakened fish farm laws, are not being enforced because staff has been cut.

HABITAT SHOWS STEEP DECLINE UNDER STEPHEN HARPER GOVERNMENT

U of C professor, Martin Olszynski, in the Journal of Environmental Law and Practice, has published a stinging indictment of the Harper Government decade of eliminating environmental laws, programs and staff.

Here is a text file of the figures, for example, DFO's budget dropped by $80 Million in 2012, $100 million more in cuts are planned. DFO reduced proposals with environmental dimensions from 12,000 in 2001, to 4,000 in 2014. DFO staff for Fisheries Act charges fell to 50 from 300, and staff time allotted dropped to 10,000 hours from 35,000 hours.

See: http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/canada/newbrunswick/story/1.3212403. 

After studying reams of data Olszynski consluded that Ottawa has 'all but abandoned' attempts to protect Canada's lakes and rivers.

The paper is published in the Journal of Environmental Law and Practice: http://www.law.ucalgary.ca/faculty/publications-olszynski. Note that you must be a research use, U of C computer, public computer to access the paper.

Grieg Seafood Loses Salmon To Low Oxygen in BC

Grieg Seafood has lost 1000 metric tonnes of product at its west coast operations: Muchalet North and Willianson sites.

At Muchalet it was 146,000 salmon while at Williamson it was 532,000.

This kind of loss is completely preventable with on-land recirculating sites, but Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg Seafood refuse to come out of the water and save their fish and save the jobs of employees.

Considering that we subsidize them to the tune of $1.65 Million per site by not charging a market level licence fee of the same value the same companies face in Norway, taxpayers are subsidizing these losses and having them use our ocean as a free, open sewer. My estimate of the sewage cost we shoulder in BC is $10.4 Billion. We don't want to pay.

See: http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2015/06/23/grieg-loses-around-1000t-salmon-to-low-water-oxygen-in-canada/?utm_source=Undercurrent+News+Alerts&utm_campaign=aafe10018b-Americas_briefing_Jun_23_2015&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_feb55e2e23-aafe10018b-92426209

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Global Aquaculture Loses One Third to One Half of all Production to Disease

I post once again the seminal work of Dr. Fred Kibenge on global losses for all of aquaculture: one third to one half, some $32 - $49 Billion.

The reason for giving you this link is that the OIE copy of it has been removed from the internet, presumably after the Canadian CFIA asked for his being de-accredited, and the OIE did so.

The link is: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1EKNKFOjnazZcKaOMnYa2Hwek4b6tCnCaPY3B9htJYtE/present?slide=id.p92.

Control over the narrative to do with fish farming rests in the hands of government departments that have high budgets. The CFIA has an annual budget of $740 Million. It simply ignores narratives that don't agree with it.

I repost this link because, like the Cohen Commission - his entire website - was deleted by DFO and it only resurrected it because journalists and environmentalists complained so much that it brought back an archival version.

I suggest you take this list and keep it aside for the time when you are needing to have a reference for the disease problems of aquaculture.

PRV Found in BC, Judge Tells DFO, Fish Farms They Can't Put Diseased Fish in the Sea

Here is the kind of uncritical news on the internet that fails to groundproof what fish farms say.

Judge Rennie ruled that BC fish farms couldn't put diseased fish in the pristine BC ocean. It told DFO it had four months to put regs in place.

But on Seafood News, their version is:

http://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/974908/75113/Anti-Salmon-Farm-Activists-Win-Court-Victory-in-BC-as-Court-Buys-Disputed-Claim-About-Transfers.

Anti-Salmon Farm Activists Win Court Victory in BC, as Court Buys Disputed Claim About Transfers

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Canadian Press] May 8, 2015 

[This court ruling was a victory for anti-salmon farming activists in BC.  However it is unclear about the practical effect, because the virus in question is naturally occuring in BC waters and existed long before salmon farms were introduced.  The actual charge of illegally moving 'sick' fish, was due to the presence of this naturally occuring virus which is not identified as a disease by salmon farmers. JS]

The problem is that PRV is a Norwegian Atlantic disease and the claim it is in BC naturally is bull. Norwegian PRV causes HSMI and is one of the recent, big killers of farmed salmon. Miller's work in the Cohen Commission showed that as high as 90% of wild Fraser sockeye were infected with this disease, after passing fish farms.

And fish farms not identifying it as a disease matters little, as it is DFO's responsibility and the OIE to make this determination. Also fish farms trade on the semantic issue that, as they claim, a fish can have the virus but not the disease. They are the only people in the world who construe the disease this way. It is a killer in Norway and BC wild salmon have been shown to have it, too.

Lice in Norway, Free Ride in BC, Canada

Lice are such a bad problem in Norway where the BC industry is from, and they are so resistant to all the chemicals, that the government has finally said they can increase the numbers of fish, if their lice counts are down.

At first and subsequent glances, this seems very strange. Let’s see, count fewer lice, make more money? Pay fish farmers if they reduce lice? It should be: they get taken out of the water for good. And who is doing the counting? After all, the CEO of Marine Harvest last year said he was angry with fish farmers because 40% of them don’t report their lice counts.

So, we pay fish farms that don’t submit numbers? Who will be doing this counting? Government? I am sure I could come up with a lower lice count easily, and then not report those numbers.

The other issue is that the companies then pay $123,854 US for a permit to raise 5% greater biomass of fish, assuming they can count fewer lice – maybe the farms not reporting will climb to 60%. 

And their licences are about $1.69 million. In BC, Canada, the licences are about $5000. So fish farms are subsidized in BC by almost S!.64 Million. This is a powerful reason to say they should be on land, because they are so highly subsidized in Canada that they can easily afford to be high and dry.

 SEAFOODNEWS.COM [Reuters] - March 20, 2015 - 

OSLO, Norwegian fish farmers will be allowed to boost their output by five percent if they succeed in complying with significantly stricter sea lice restrictions, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Fisheries said on Friday.

Fish farmers must pay one million Norwegian crowns ($123,854) for the new permit. Only those who meet a limit of an average 0.1 sea lice per fish, well below the limit of 0.5 lice under current regulations, will be allowed to increase output...

http://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/968764/73234/Norways-Fish-Farmers-Eligible-for-5-Percent-Production-Increase-if-Lice-Are-Controlled.

Kim Jong-Un, On-land Fish Farmer, North Korea!

Surprise, surprise! Even North Korea, one of the least technically advanced nations on earth (only 1000 computers connected to the internet) has on-land, closed-containment fish farms.

The big dude himself can be seen looking down to the fish in the tank. Lovingly? Can’t say, but it has to be said: even the most technology-challenged of countries put fish farms on land where they belong. Even dictators with no sense of humour are doing it.

Marine Harvest, Cermaq, Grieg Seafood, it’s time to get out of the water and quit using the world’s pristine oceans as free, open sewers.

See: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2885133/So-kill-time-North-Korea-internet-goes-Kim-Jong-visits-fish-farm-country-s-web-access-cut-off.html. 


See my link for 70 fish farm systems, now 71, on land, comprising more than 8,000 on land fish farms around the world. There is no need anymore for the excessive environmental damage caused by in-ocean fish farms: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2012/01/key-document-34-mostly-on-land-closed.html. 

Summary: Fish Farm Environmental Laws Damaged by DFO and Harper Government, Updated April 28, 2015

Gathered into one post here is all of what DFO and the Harper Government have done to weaken the laws in Canada and to allow fish farms to dump raw sewage, chemicals and other pollutants into public waters.

The major beneficiaries are the multi-national, multi-billion dollar Norwegian companies Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg Seafood.

1.      Weakened the fish habitat regulations in the Fisheries Act. S-35 and S-36.

See: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/11/key-document-strictest-laws-in-world.html.

2.      Weakened the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act - 2012.

See: https://www.ecojustice.ca/files/ceaa-backgrounder-1/at_download/file.

3.      Weakened the science apparatus by firing scientists, and refusing to let them talk about their science in public. 90% of DFO's own scientists are against what DFO is doing, weakening laws and reducing science budgets. This includes weakening laws, letting scientists go and the new and even weaker aquaculture regulations. See:  http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/12/canada-strictest-fish-farm-laws-no-best.html.

4.  Weakened the law by allowing fish farms to take over dumping their pollutants into the sea. These are the new, weaker, Aquaculture regs: http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/aquaculture/management-gestion/aar-raa-proposition-eng.htm.

5.      Weakened NAFTA oversight into fish farm damage to wild salmon. Specifically: That Canada violated its own laws by allowing fish farms to harm wild salmon stocks through the spread of parasites. Canada, the federal government, refused to allow the investigation.

The petition to NAFTA's Commission for Environmental Cooperation, was filed in February 2012 by the Centre for Biological Diversity, the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society, the Kwikwasu'tinuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fisherman's Associations. The groups had asked for a fact- finding inquiry into whether Canada was failing to enforce its Fisheries Act by protecting British Columbia's wild salmon.

"This NAFTA process is supposed to shine light on whether environmental laws are being enforced, but the process has become increasingly politicized and it's clear Canada does not want the facts revealed about the damage to wild salmon from industrial fish farms," said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. See: http://www.kcet.org/news/redefine/rewild/commentary/could-canadian-fish-farms-harm-californias-wild-salmon.html.        
6.      Weakened Canada Marine Act. See: http://www.envirolawsmatter.ca/d_j_vu_again.  Bill C-43 allows the federal government to exempt ‘port’ lands from the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act and the Species at Risk Act, and to delegate powers to any person, eliminating oversight.

7.      Weakened DFO Conservation and Protection enforcement. DFO enforcement budget and staff numbers in BC are vastly underfunded and understaffed with respect to the rest of Canada, and the salmon enhancement program budget is dumped into the across Canada C&P budget, thus it is only a bargaining chip, when budgets are rationalized annually.

During the Cohen Commission, for example, Conservation and Protection revealed that it was approved for 55 staff to deal with fish farms alone. It was told to take out all of northern BC saltwater and all freshwater hatcheries, and not to talk with the Province’s staff that had previously done the job prior to 2010.

The behind the scenes emails on this show a DFO as dysfunctional as everyone in BC thinks it is (do note most BC residents are on the side of BC DFO staff). Ultimately only 12 staff were received, only 21.8% of what was authorized, and one was sent to Port Hardy, making enforcement activities on fish farms completely ineffective in the view of C&P’s top staff.

One of its Funding and Operational Issues submissions (the shortfall total was $15.639 million plus $1.5 million for capital items) is hilarious if it were not so sad. There is only one boat for the whole province, and it is in disrepair. Here is the kicker: for rigid hull vessels, DFO did not authorize any fuel for the boats – a budget of only $200,000. Pretty much zero oversight for fish farm infractions.

Here is an example from the Cohen Commission document: “C&P was advised that fish farm compliance was nearly 100% and the need for enforcement would be low. After one of the first fish site visits… [the fish farm reported] one dead sea lion in their predator nets. C& P returned with an underwater camera and located 55 dead sea lions in the netting.”

8.      The Index for this Fish Farm News blog will take you to many posts on weakening fish farm laws in Canada. Note particularly the Nancy Greene Raine posts. See: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/10/index-to-wwwfishfarmnewsblogspotcom.html. 

9. Here is an April 2015 update on the weakened Regs that DFO Minister, Gail Shea is going to bring in, totally disregarding that residents who have to live with fish farms overwhelmingly want them out of the water, or they can go back to Norway: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1663476680547553&set=np.1430232327071432.100001711032000&type=1

DFO and Nancy Greene Want Fish Farms in BC? We Don't Want Them In Our Ocean

Dear Gail Shea

With your Pacific Region Marine Finfish Integrated Management of Aquaculture Plan, 2013 arriving on my desk today, I have to protest your considering more fish farms in BC.

You have not responded to Cohen yet and this is a deep, long-term resentment for BC. In this context, your getting senators to express positive things, and the ‘insouciant’ Nancy Greene Raine, a BC resident no less, what you are doing is reprehensible. More than 100,000 BC residents have signed a petition to get the farms out of the water. Don’t you get this?

But here is also what is happening right now here: BC is dead against the Northern Gateway Pipeline, dead against the Kinder Morgan pipeline, both of which are seen as the rest of Canada pushing oil and its problems down  BC throats – meaning Alberta, Harper, TROC and you. The Site C dam is also a big environmental issue here, but a made in BC issue, that is hot right now. And fracking is Clark’s big thing, but the rest of us are dead against our water being destroyed. Oh, and Obama is lowering emissions 30%. And you? Not so much.

In addition, the USA NAFTA Panel has agreed to investigate the Canadian government’s refusal to protect wild salmon in BC because of its conflict of interest with fish farms. And the BC alliance of aboriginal chiefs, some 80 First Nations, has finally come out completely against in-ocean fish farms. And then there is the Namgis Kuterra on-land salmon that Safeway will now buy. In-ocean fish farms are technological dinosaurs and toast.

What does it take to convince you that BC will not put up with more fish farms in our ocean?

Go to my www.fishfarmnews.blogspot.com site for a summary of 15,000 pages of fish farm environmental damage science. There are two documents that went to Nancy Greene, who is in the process of destroying her own name in BC - I am sorry to have to say it as it is: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/05/nancy-greene-raine-and-federal-senators.html; and, http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2014/04/nancy-greene-raine-fish-farms-what.html.

The BC Stats report noted in the pieces shows conclusively that fish farms are flat-lined in BC, and it’s because no one here will eat the stuff, and it has to be exported to the USA. But there, with the removal of a 26% duty, the Norwegian companies that own 90% of BC fish farm will be exporting from Norway against the interests of their own BC operations, as well as setting up shop in the USA. BC fish farms are toast and it is their own companies that are doing it to them. It has nothing to do with the 'strictness of the laws' as you have claimed – it’s the companies themselves. You can’t grow what can’t be sold. Oh, and that BC Stats doc is your own DFO document that you paid for but don’t use anymore than you do Cohen’s 1200 page tome. Use them.

The BC Stats report has the only trustable stats out there. And I have since ferreted out that there are actually only 795 actual fish farm jobs in BC with the sewage damage of $10.4 billion. How can you possibly support what is so dramatically net negative to the BC economy? We in BC just don’t want these in our ocean anymore, with their diseases and etc. Put them in Ottawa, if you want them. We don’t want them.

And you do remember that BC is where Greenpeace was born don’t you? BC is Canada’s environmental heart and home to our iconic wild Pacific salmon. All ten species of salmonids are threatened by in-ocean fish farms. Do the right thing and take them out of the water.

Sorry to be so harsh, but I have never met a single BC resident who thinks fish farms should be in the ocean. I have never met NGR, but have hope for her, too.

DC Reid

One further comment: if you read the DFO report, it takes the BC Stats multiplier figure of 1700 jobs, and more than doubles it to over 3900. Sure. 

Harper Government Dismantling Canadian Government Science Resources, Updated Dec 26, 2013

This Tyee article is a very good summary document of many of the actions taken by the Harper Government (as Harper likes to call it) to dismantle our federal government science capability that Canadians have paid and continue to pay for: http://thetyee.ca/News/2013/12/23/Canadian-Science-Libraries/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=231213.

It starts with the issue of closing the science library in Winnipeg, and then goes on to list toward the bottom many of the other steps the Harper Government has taken in the past year or so. Such items include gutting the Fisheries Act of environmental clauses, doing the same to the Environmental Protection Act. firing scientists and other actions.

If you look back in these posts, the Royal Society put out a stinging indictment of the government's lack of action on our three coast oceans in 2012: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2012/02/key-document-royal-society-of-canada.htmlhttp://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2012/02/key-document-royal-society-of-canada.html.