Dear Editor

A month ago I wrote to the Minister of Fisheries, the honourable Gail Shea asking her to apply the Fisheries Act to fish “farms.”

Turn off their growlights
Monitor the by-catch of wild fish that enter the pens
Licence the farm-owned packer boats

When the Minister didn’t answer, I asked some fishermen if they wanted to join me on the letter. Today over 8,000 people have asked to sign and I resend the letter every week. Why is there no answer?

BC Supreme Court ruled that in the eyes of the law there are no fish farms, that they can only be a fishery and since there are no “private” schools of fish in the Canadian ocean, the fish “farmers” do not own their fish, they are a public fishery. Marine Harvest has appealed this decision bringing this back into Provincial politics. But the crux of the problem is that constitutionally there is no place for this industry to exist. In 1988, someone convinced the federal government to pass the industry over to the Province as farms. The Province is not responsible for wild fish and so the pens got placed on BC’s most productive fishing grounds. The court decision brings stark light to the industry. Today the industry with its requirement to own salmon and privatize ocean spaces stands so far outside the law I doubt Minister Shea, nor Premier Campbell have any idea of how to deal with this. While many have worked tirelessly to move this industry into tanks, the Norwegian players who dominate the industry have shown no interest in this at all. Their product is not worth enough to pay for waste removal.

So do we just give up and let this industry sputter to its conclusion taking our economy down with them or do we fix it at huge cost to the industry. They knew full well they were going into the wrong places of this coast because as a person living in the remote Broughton I heard my neighbours explain again and again that they were putting the pens right on top of their best prawn, rock cod, clam and salmon fishing grounds. Neither the companies nor the Provincial beaurocrats who are still very much involved though sitting in new chairs, would listen and here we are today. Every other fishery in Canada is facing very strict regulation whether they like it or not.

The politicians need to be told which way to go, because I can tell you the Norwegians are not sitting this one out hoping someone takes care of them.

If you want to join us on the letter

www.adopt-a-fry.org “the Petition”

Alexandra Morton