Why should the spin doctors be allowed to lie?

Our very weak consumer protection laws in the province/Canada allow spin doctors to lie ad nauseum! There is no law to protect the public from these charlatans.

A true story.

In the UK, political spin doctors were stating in the media, several untrue items about LRT, they were taken to court by a small public transit group, under the UK Trade Descriptions Act, and they won! Heavy fines were assessed to those playing fast and lose with the facts.

We can not do this here and it now is clearly evident that government and any lobby with the bucks, can lie with impunity.

Always a Breath of Fresh Air

It's a crying shame CKNW was forced to terminate Rafe Mair's always provocative radio program. Canadians loved true freedom of speech and we're worse off for its loss. Glad he's here at the Tyee. And yes, the tiny group of corporate elites running BC and Ottawa have backed the wrong horse. Again. Fish farming, financed by foreign corporations, has been welcomed into BC's coast. Right into the very heart of BC's wild salmon stocks. And its destroying those stocks. Think of the contempt that shows for one of BC's most unique legacies. Great artitcle Rafe. Keep it up!

Containment

It's time for the BC government to set a date (not too far off) for the fish farms to be completely enclosed. The science is in and it's time to act. The technology for containment exists and it will work. Enough is enough.

Public Relations

C'mon Rafe, You know that the proper term is Professional Liars. Spin Doctors and Public Relations is the polite and politically correct name for those people.

Fish Ranching

Hey Rafe, the next time that you manage to speak to a Professional Liar about Fish Farming, ask why the industry doesn't endorse the concept of Fish Ranching instead.

The BLAME GAME, is not applicable here

off-the-radar wrote:

The FISH FARMS got started under an NDP government!

I detest this flinging sh!t at the current government and thinking that will be all that it takes to solve the problem!

The native communities along the BC coast know the price that must be paid for this industry - either way! Either they refuse the fish farms and try and eke out a living in depleted waters since all the other places/people get to fish farm (spreading disease and lice all over the very fish that other groups need) or they get fishing licences and catch them before they return close enough to their spawning stream (and thus the group of native fishermen whom chose not to allow the fish farm); or they allow the fish farm and watch as all their other sources of food from the sea either die off, become inedible due to poisoning, or otherwise simply 'vanish' - leaving them with little options other than more fish farming.

Stop blaming the politicians, they are just being good politicians = they are staying paid for.

The solution is clear, stop buying this crap, tell your fish monger / supermarket / restaurant you will not take farmed fish, help take back the coastal seas as these open fish pens are worse than feed lots.

When the wild fishery collapses ...

When the number of wild, Pacific salmon are so pathetic that we are no longer permitted to fish for them, who will we blame? It SHOULD be the politicians who chose to listen to the "science" provided by the fish farm industry. I'm sure they'll come up with some other scapegoat ... politicians seem to be good at that.

Fish Identification

I’ve been searching my local markets for farmed fish, and haven’t found a single farmed salmon yet. Makes you wonder just how much farmed fish we are inadvertently consuming. How much frozen and canned fish is really farmed?? I know some of the frozen salmon I've bought in Safeway is god awful, very mushy texture.

Something fishy here!

When will the public finally realize that fish farms are bad. They pollute, they kill wild stocks, they cause cancer, and they do not taste good. Remember this, gordo and his gang wholly endorses this crap. Take that to the polls. He can still enjoy his farmed crap in jail also.

Have no fear..

Foreign governments will solve the problem just like they did for the BSE crisis.

Once the fish become too diseased for human consumption, other countries will ban their import. Problem solved.

Unless, like with the BSE crisis where it takes 10 years for V-CJD to appear, the fish crisis leaves a similar long-term catastrophe.

Safeway

I rolled my full shopping cart up to the fish counter in the meat department at the local Safeway, and was shocked, displayed for all to see, fresh farmed salmon. I asked the clerk, is that real farmed salmon? "Why yes it is." I left the cart there and walked out.

I think I saw you

that time..walking out..just leaving it there and walking out.
I hesitated going in but I

found your loaded cart..

and I just wheeled it to the check out and
had it bagged
and took it home

I still ask myself why, though
no one else did. I kept the bags outside awhile and thought about salmon..what they were.. and what they meant. I was back on the river dyke during spawning season was it November? It was a rare cold clear winter day..a weekend and people were strolling the dyke...photographing the salmon spawning and the eagles in numbers feeding on the spent fish. We were observers ..we people , settlers..outside of this drama playing out before us..then.. ahead of me walking along very slowly ..I could tell he was native and As I passed him he turned his face to me...very close we were..and the sun caught his face and it was first copper..then silver, then gold..and I realized he was a part of the cycle that we were not...he was the salmon, the river, the eagles and he was thousands of years old..the bones of his ancestors ,the ancient children rest here.. we, settlers..apart.. taking it in.. bundled up with our cameras, wrinkling our noses at the death smell of the great fish .. but not really knowing at all what it was...
Copper , silver and gold and a thousand year old smile in the winter sunlight.

Fish farming

This is just another way the Neo-cons wish to own the food supply: Keep on farming diseased, alien fish, decimate the indigenous species so that no one can fish for food themself.

history of BC fish Farms, for Murdock

No blame, just facts.

Yes, Some fish farms got started in the 70s under the NDP when Barrett was in, but he was only Premier for about 3 years. Then it was 15 or 16 years of fish farm expansion under the Socreds until 1991 when Harcourt got in. In 1995, seeing that the industry may be endangering wild salmon, the NDP placed a moratorium on expansion pending a 16 month review. The study made 49 recommendations that the industry supported, but most of those recommendations have not been implemented.

Clark was Premier 1996-1999. His government maintained the moratorium.

In 2002, the Campbell government lifted the moratorium.

http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/salmonfarming/history.html
http://livingoceans.org/fishfarms/history.shtml
http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/Resources/fishfarmpaper.htm

@SharingIsGood

thanks for the history, that was helpful.

@murdock

Actuall I think ideology was the common factor. Clark's governnment and Campbell's government were/are both ideologically driven and not open to dialogue and pragmatic resolutions reflecting the middle-ground values of British Columbians.

Both Clark and Campbell had Premier's offices that tried to micro-manage government (although Campbell makes Clark look like an amateur). Both Campbell and Clark have very active Public Affairs Bureaus (again, Campbell's PR machine is far more effective and unlike Clark's era, PAB now reports directly to the Premier's office).

One difference, Canwest is a relentless booster of Campbell and was a relentless foe of Clark.

Shilling for sea lice

Great work as usual, Rafe.
Murdock complains about the blame game. Letter-writers to The Tyee and to the 'mainstream' papers complain that Rafe goes on and on about fish. But if he hadn't, I wonder how many people would still be trying to pressure the government to deal with the fish-farm-generated sea-lice epidemic? Mebbe two, three?
What Rafe detractors need to accept, is that this problem is not just a matter of wild fish survival. It is about the fact that government-sanctioned destruction of wild fish stocks is but a symptom of an arrogant government determined to have its own way. And, mostly, it's about the fact that, in our current so-called democracy we have precious few ways to call that government to account. Once every 4-5 years is not good enough. What we need is a mechanism by which a Premier and/or Ministers can be impeached.

Fish farming is not bad.

Poorly run fish farming is. Geez! Get it right people.

Re: The BLAME GAME, is not applicable here

It's my understanding that most BC farmed salmon is exported. Therefore, with consumers here already shunning this garbage, the market-based solution you suggest is not applicable in BC.

If we are talking about jobs, wild salmon based employment is equal or greater than fish farm employment. That doesn't count, however. It's the amount of political contributions that matter.

This fraud is the problem and is what needs to be addressed.

I paid for my university

I paid for my university tuition by working as a fish washer in the old BC Packers cannery in Steveston. The first summer I worked there was in 1981. At that time,we saw very few fish lice. As time went on (and gosh, it coincided with the beginning of the fish farm industry) there were more and more lice on the fish. I come from a family of commercial salmon fishermen and very few of them are working in the industry anymore. The BC Packers Cannery has been torn down to make way for condos. The commercial fishing industry is dying just like in Newfoundland. If you fool yourself into thinking that the fish you see in the grocery stores are wild salmon then think again. The fishermen that I know sell their fish to the public directly because they make more money that way and they need all they can get. I refuse to buy fish from the grocery stores and try to convince my friends to do the same.

Good on you, Rafe! Someone has to make noise about this issue. It reminds me of the pine beetle infestation. People in the interior made a lot of noise about it for years but it wasn't until the infestation reached Whistler that the government started to pay attention.