Island News & Views
World Food Traditions · 27th May 2008
Ray Grigg
The salmon farming feces have finally hit Alexandra Morton's propeller blades. After years of frustration trying to curtail the threat to wild salmon from open net-pen fish farms, the biologist from the Broughton Archipelago has resorted to legal action.
This will not be the first time. Several years ago she launched legal action against an industry that she alleged polluted West Coast waters, threatened wildlife and endangered BC's marine ecology. That action was conveniently taken up by the Crown – which then dropped the case, apparently for lack of incriminating evidence. This time Morton's legal strategy is different, the allegations are constitutional and the move will illuminate the issue as never before. She now has support from the Wilderness Tourism Association, the Southern Gillnetters Association, the Fishing Vessel Owners' Association and the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society.
As for illumination, Morton's recently filed petition is already beginning to explain why both the provincial and federal governments have offered such a slow, muddling and inept response to the incriminating evidence that salmon farming is doing serious damage to wild stock.
The public did not likely know until Tuesday, May 6, 2008, that in 1988 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) entered into a memorandum of understanding with British Columbia which assigned responsibility for salmon farms to the province. So the provincial government, which is promoting salmon farming, thus became responsible for the industry's environmental impact – a classical conflict of interest. And the federal government, which is supposed to be responsible for marine species, thus delegated its authority to the province – a classical bureaucratic evasion. No wonder, as Morton explained in a statement dripping with exasperation, "You end up going in circles and no one is taking responsibility."
As the petition succinctly states, "(Fisheries and Oceans Canada) has left itself no mechanism to effectively regulate aquaculture and no mechanism to protect wild salmon from negative environmental effects such as concentrations of sea lice resulting from fish farms."
The thrust of the petition to the courts is to challenge the federal government's authority to delegate its duties to the province – it would be comparable to assigning BC the responsibility for collecting the nation's income tax, formulating its criminal law or determining its defence policy. The respective duties of the federal and provincial governments were defined by the British North America Act of 1867. And the petition contends that those responsibilities cannot be delegated. If the petition succeeds, Morton explains, "...fish farms in British Columbia [will be] unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid."
And that's not all. As Mark Hume writes in the Globe & Mail (May7/08),"If the petition succeeds and the authority of the province is struck down, the groups would then consider legal action against the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans for failing to act to protect wild salmon". And Morton adds, "This will be a chain of legal actions. Once we get this whole mess under one roof, we'll go clean up that house." Or, in the words of Gregory McDade, the lawyer who will be arguing the case, if successful, the province "would be out of the business of aquaculture and DFO would have to regulate the health of the wild salmon inside and outside of the fish farms" (Ibid.).
This is an ambitious legal project. It's also an heroic one. Morton and her small band of supporters will be combatting two of Canada's governments and the multi-national that controls most of BC's salmon farming industry. Marine Harvest Canada, a subsidiary of Norwegian interests that have salmon farms around the world, will be more than interested since they are also mentioned in the petition.
Media spin is already coming from Marine Harvest, probably because it hopes for business as usual amid the jurisdictional vacuum. "Unfortunately it's a move backwards... it's a confrontational approach," said Clare Backman of BC's operations (Campbell River Mirror, May 9/08).
Yes, it is confrontational. The abdication of authority by the federal government and the pandering of the provincial government to salmon farming interests is now so blatantly obvious that somebody had to do something. Vulnerable smolts are now migrating seaward past lice-infected farmed salmon, global evidence has essentially confirmed that open net-pen salmon farming is having devastating effects on wild fish, the sea lice infection in BC seems to be spreading from isolated sites to herring and other wild salmon in the Gulf of Georgia, and, according to Morton, 22 farms are operating on leases that have either expired or are soon to expire.
At stake in this legal action could be the role of wild salmon in sustaining BC's marine and river ecologies. These keystone species are already at risk from a long and shameful historical abuse of their habitat. Now climate change is offering new threats. And damage from open net-pen salmon farming must not become another stress added to this precious and precarious natural resource. Someone such as Alexandra Morton, who loves our coastal wildlife with a rare passion and a fierce dedication, is doing what she can to save it. She deserves all the applause and support her fellow British Columbians can muster.
Post Script: Although Morton is getting a small amount of financial help from West Coast Environmental Law, she is personally assuming financial responsibility for the costs of the petition to the courts. She is raising funds through www.adopt-a-fry.org or at General Delivery, Simoom Sound, BC, V0P 1S0.
This will not be the first time. Several years ago she launched legal action against an industry that she alleged polluted West Coast waters, threatened wildlife and endangered BC's marine ecology. That action was conveniently taken up by the Crown – which then dropped the case, apparently for lack of incriminating evidence. This time Morton's legal strategy is different, the allegations are constitutional and the move will illuminate the issue as never before. She now has support from the Wilderness Tourism Association, the Southern Gillnetters Association, the Fishing Vessel Owners' Association and the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society.
As for illumination, Morton's recently filed petition is already beginning to explain why both the provincial and federal governments have offered such a slow, muddling and inept response to the incriminating evidence that salmon farming is doing serious damage to wild stock.
The public did not likely know until Tuesday, May 6, 2008, that in 1988 the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) entered into a memorandum of understanding with British Columbia which assigned responsibility for salmon farms to the province. So the provincial government, which is promoting salmon farming, thus became responsible for the industry's environmental impact – a classical conflict of interest. And the federal government, which is supposed to be responsible for marine species, thus delegated its authority to the province – a classical bureaucratic evasion. No wonder, as Morton explained in a statement dripping with exasperation, "You end up going in circles and no one is taking responsibility."
As the petition succinctly states, "(Fisheries and Oceans Canada) has left itself no mechanism to effectively regulate aquaculture and no mechanism to protect wild salmon from negative environmental effects such as concentrations of sea lice resulting from fish farms."
The thrust of the petition to the courts is to challenge the federal government's authority to delegate its duties to the province – it would be comparable to assigning BC the responsibility for collecting the nation's income tax, formulating its criminal law or determining its defence policy. The respective duties of the federal and provincial governments were defined by the British North America Act of 1867. And the petition contends that those responsibilities cannot be delegated. If the petition succeeds, Morton explains, "...fish farms in British Columbia [will be] unconstitutional, unlawful and invalid."
And that's not all. As Mark Hume writes in the Globe & Mail (May7/08),"If the petition succeeds and the authority of the province is struck down, the groups would then consider legal action against the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans for failing to act to protect wild salmon". And Morton adds, "This will be a chain of legal actions. Once we get this whole mess under one roof, we'll go clean up that house." Or, in the words of Gregory McDade, the lawyer who will be arguing the case, if successful, the province "would be out of the business of aquaculture and DFO would have to regulate the health of the wild salmon inside and outside of the fish farms" (Ibid.).
This is an ambitious legal project. It's also an heroic one. Morton and her small band of supporters will be combatting two of Canada's governments and the multi-national that controls most of BC's salmon farming industry. Marine Harvest Canada, a subsidiary of Norwegian interests that have salmon farms around the world, will be more than interested since they are also mentioned in the petition.
Media spin is already coming from Marine Harvest, probably because it hopes for business as usual amid the jurisdictional vacuum. "Unfortunately it's a move backwards... it's a confrontational approach," said Clare Backman of BC's operations (Campbell River Mirror, May 9/08).
Yes, it is confrontational. The abdication of authority by the federal government and the pandering of the provincial government to salmon farming interests is now so blatantly obvious that somebody had to do something. Vulnerable smolts are now migrating seaward past lice-infected farmed salmon, global evidence has essentially confirmed that open net-pen salmon farming is having devastating effects on wild fish, the sea lice infection in BC seems to be spreading from isolated sites to herring and other wild salmon in the Gulf of Georgia, and, according to Morton, 22 farms are operating on leases that have either expired or are soon to expire.
At stake in this legal action could be the role of wild salmon in sustaining BC's marine and river ecologies. These keystone species are already at risk from a long and shameful historical abuse of their habitat. Now climate change is offering new threats. And damage from open net-pen salmon farming must not become another stress added to this precious and precarious natural resource. Someone such as Alexandra Morton, who loves our coastal wildlife with a rare passion and a fierce dedication, is doing what she can to save it. She deserves all the applause and support her fellow British Columbians can muster.
Post Script: Although Morton is getting a small amount of financial help from West Coast Environmental Law, she is personally assuming financial responsibility for the costs of the petition to the courts. She is raising funds through www.adopt-a-fry.org or at General Delivery, Simoom Sound, BC, V0P 1S0.