Thank you to all of you for your letters and calls to your Members of Parliament and the Prime Minister we now have Judicial Inquiry into how Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is managing the Fraser sockeye.
After months of silence and highly conflicting and confusing information coming from DFO the Prime Minister has taken a very significant step by announcing this Inquiry. The 2009 Fraser sockeye salmon collapse pattern is remarkably specific with some stocks failing by over 90% and others returning at 4 times what was predicted.
When an animal demonstrates a pattern this bold (the fish migrating north disappeared, while the fish moving south flourished), it is possible to decipher the cause. However, DFO has thwarted progress with a torrent of highly contradictory and confusing misinformation.
The purpose of a Judicial Inquiry is to reveal the facts and then make recommendations to government. It is run by a judge and testimony is given under oath. Our sockeye are at the moment of no return. If there had been a Judicial Inquiry into DFO’s management of our North Atlantic cod stocks, certain DFO scientists would have been allowed to speak earlier and we would still have those fish stocks.
I feel cautiously optimistic. Our salmon are dying of conflicted, tangled politics which we now have the opportunity to sort out.
There have been many people behind this, but most important is all of you.
I will keep you posted as I learn more
Comments
2 responses to “Prime Minister Stephen Harper Calls for Judicial Inquiry into DFO’s Handling of the Fraser Sockeye Crash!!!!”
CONGRATULATIONS to Alex and the PEOPLE OF BEAUTIFUL BRITISH COLUMBIA!!!! Everyone should be happy about the Prime Minister’s decision. DFO, the Aquaculture Industry and the owners of the wild salmon resources. A full investigation into the collapse of the Fraser Salmon Stocks will clear the air once and for all. I hope the results of this investigation can be used to solve problems in other parts of our great country. One again CONGRATULATIONS!!!!!!!!!! We in the East will be watching with GREAT interest!!!!!!
West coast marine spatial planning (fish farms and oil drilling rigs being examples) depends on the exercise of both federal, provincial and municipal powers (not forgetting the exercise of aboriginal rights). While Stephen Harper’s announcement of an inquiry into the sockeye disappearance is welcome, there are troubling clouds on the horizon.
One major risk (and I would defer to a legal view on this) is that, in common with inquiries of this sort, it may well become more a gladiator sport between constitutional lawyers than an exercise in factual understanding of the sockeye disappearance.
In the days since it was announced (three days ago), there has been total silence from the provincial government. Normally, in similar announcements, the internet is alive with announcements and responses of the B.C. government. A thread of concern for some of us has always been the criteria for location of fish farms and the official and unofficial delegation of powers by the DFO. We know from a recent court decision, that some of these powers were/are improperly handled by the provincial government.
The question I ask is therefore what powers does the federal sockeye inquiry have to compel evidence production from the various provincial and municipal agencies of historic and recent information on location of aquaculture facilities, granting of property rights to the fish farms and monitoring of disease patterns.
All of these may be contributing factors in the sockeye disappearance.
Of course, all this constitutional jousting can be avoided by a simple clear statement by the provincial government of it’s intention to provide unreservedly all this information – constitutional impediments or not.
So far, in other matters, the present B.C. provincial government is not an outstanding example of fair, proportional and transparent governance.
Will there be, for example, a moratorium on new fish farm construction and planning until the commission has reported? That would certainly be an exercise in statesmanship by the fish farm industry. And until the linkage between sockeye returns and salmon farm location is clarified, it is merely an exercise of the sustainable aquaculture strategies that the fish farm companies and the Norwegian government both widely publicise.
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