Department of Fisheries and Ocean staff scientist Dr. Kristi Miller made waves today at the Cohen inquiry with her eagerly awaited testimony about a 'novel' virus that could be infecting millions of sockeye.

What Miller, a molecular geneticist, originally described in her January 2011 Science publication as salmon leukaemia has been more accurately identified as parvovirus. This is the first time this virus has been seen in salmon, though it is not known how long it has been present in other species.

Each fall millions of sockeye salmon return home to the mighty Fraser River to spawn. Over the next several months, the silvery fish will head upstream, slowly turning brilliant red as their bodies adjust to fresh water. After years at sea, they return to the very gravel, the very river in which they were born.

As May 2 creeps closer, all of our federal parties are looking to solidify your vote. In this race, there are key regions of Canada that each party has been targeting in order to win swing ridings.

B.C. is one of these highly contested regions, with all of the parties giving special attention to our voters, and our issues. But in B.C. there is one issue which has been surprisingly absent from the honeyed tongues of most candidates. And that issue is the future of our wild salmon, and what the federal government plans to do about fish farms.