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Support Bill C-228 - End open-pen salmon farming in BC
Mon, 2016-11-21 21:04
#1
Support Bill C-228 - End open-pen salmon farming in BC
Mon, 2016-11-21 21:22
#2
Here's a site to help you send a letter to your MP in support of Fin Donnelly's Bill. http://salmon.advokit.ca/
Ask your MP to support Bill C-228
Open-pen salmon farms put our wild salmon at risk from disease. It's past time for government action to protect our wild salmon.
Tell your local Member of Parliament that you support moving BC's open-pen salmon feedlots to closed containment and ask for their vote to pass Bill C-228.
On February 24th, 2016 Fin Donnelly, MP (Port Moody -Coquitlam) introduced Bill C-228, to amend the Fisheries Act to protect wild salmon from the dangers of open-pen salmon farms. Second reading will take place in Fall 2016.
Fri, 2019-01-11 12:45
#3
The Dzawada’enuxw First Nation files lawsuit against Canada on fish farms dispute
Dzawada'enuxw First Nation community members, including matriarchs, elected and traditional leaders, and artists, were in Vancouver Thursday to announce their decision to sue the Government of Canada.
The First Nation, from Kingcome Inlet, B.C., filed a statement of claim in federal court in Vancouver on Thursday, arguing the federal government authorized licenses for fish farms operating in their waters, without their consultation or consent.
The claim says the fish farm operations pollute and poison wild salmon and infringe on the nation's constitutionally protected rights. Their case is the first ever rights-based challenge to the federal licensing process that fish farm companies rely on to operate along the coast of B.C.
According to the statement of claim, the federal government did not consult the community or gain consent for 10 open net pen fish farms, infringing on the nation's "Aboriginal rights," protected under Sec. 35 of the Constitution Act. The fish farms are said to harm their waters and profoundly impact wild salmon populations, sea life, animal life, and the Dzawada'enuxw Nation community's way of life. Claims have not yet been heard in court.
"Our salmon stocks continue to decline rapidly and soon I fear the very possibility that our salmon will be no more. It is a keystone species and its decline impacts us on so many levels," said Faron Soukochoff, elected chair of the Dzawada'enuxw First Nation at a press conference on unceded Coast Salish territories Thursday morning.
quote:
Fish farm closure announcement wrought with confusion
On December 14, 2018, the B.C. provincial government, industry, and the Kwikwasut'inuxw Haxwa'mis, 'Namgis and Mamalilikulla First Nations signed an agreement to shut down 10 fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago in the next three years. While the announcement has been celebrated by some wild salmon advocates and anti-fish farm land defenders, when asked about the agreement, Woodward said it was a set-back for the Dzawada'enuxw Nation.
A document describing the plan was handed out at the Musgamakw Dzawada'enuxw Tribal Council Meeting on Dec. 18, 2018 in Campbell River, where a motion was put forward and passed to vote against the agreement.
"The province extended several tenures within the territory of the Dzawada'enuxw First Nation. Some of those tenures are already involved in a legal challenge," Woodward told National Observer at the press conference. "We already have a legal challenge saying that those tenures are illegal and should be terminated legally and we have a court case likely to be heard in April in which we hope those tenures will be terminated. Yet the provincial government granted extensions to some of those to the year 2024, an additional five years."
Chief Willie Moon said his nation wants all of the fish farms removed from their territories. This is something that wasn't expressed in the December agreement.