Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Wild salmon lovers in the province are expressing cautious optimism as Fraser River sockeye returns significantly exceed expectations — something that’s being attributed, in part, to the removal of fish farms in the area. But there’s also frustration from commercial fishers as Fisheries and Oceans Canada, commonly known as DFO, appears unwilling to allow a meaningful commercial fishery after years of closures. “We’ll take the bad when it happens. That’s part of fishing. But when there is a sustainable harvest to be had, we expect to be able to fish, and so do First Nations on this coast,” Guy Johnston, secretary-treasurer of UFAWU-Unifor, the United Fishermen & Allied Worker’s Union, told The Tyee. “You can’t just let it swim by” ..., CLICK HERE for the full story

Joanne Dally, 63, says she doesn't know when she will be able to host her next dinner party — she hasn't had running water at home since mid-October because the well on her property, her only source of water, has run dry. "We have to go to relatives to shower, we have to haul our water in totes, go to the laundromat," said Dally, who has lived in her home, a few kilometres west of the Fraser River near Prince George, B.C., since 2013. This year is the first time she's experienced a water shortage, one that has persisted now for six weeks ... CLICK HERE for the full story

For cities that buried their creeks, an urban solution to remove pollutants from rainy roads   They buried the creek under St. George Street to make room for roads and houses.   Little waterways like it, fed by rainwater, were once everywhere in Vancouver, flowing down the slopes into False Creek, English Bay, Burrard Inlet and the Fraser River. Over 50 of them spawned salmon.   Over a century ago, as the city developed, all but a few of these creeks and streams have been piped and culverted, hidden underground.   But if you’re at the intersection of St. George and Sixth Avenue in the neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant, walk over to the manhole. You can hear it better in the winter, but even in the summer, the sound is unmistakable: running water ... CLICK HERE for the full story

  If you have been following my blog then you might feel this post is just recycling old content . Unfortunately, I am not. The bad news for the wild Pacific salmon is getting worse. This week a CBC reporter asked me to respond to the fact that the Pacific Salmon Commission has downgraded the 2020 Fraser River sockeye   salmon forecast   from 941,000 to 283,000 fish. It has been awhile since I have spoken about salmon, however I am no less passionate about the issue. This news is extremely distressing. These are the lowest numbers since they started forecasting the returns a century ago. I have spent a lot of time on salmon policy in my work as an MLA. I'm thrilled that a result of the many questions that my B.C. Green Caucus colleagues and I asked about wild Pacific salmon, the provincial government made it a high priority and partnered with the federal government to deliver the $142 million  Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund. Despite the positive s...

Since my election to the British Columbia legislature in May 2017, I have been a champion for wild salmon. As I have written often in the pages of this blog, the salmon are not only an important symbol of the abundance of our province, their work of transporting nutrients from the Pacific Ocean back home gives life to all other wildlife in our creeks, streams, rivers, and forests. Salmon are truly one of the great wonders of the world. In early 2019, the provincial and federal governments learned of a landslide at Big Bar, in the Fraser River north of Lillooet, BC. The landslide has had a dramatic impact on BC’s iconic salmon runs. It is just one of many human-caused and natural challenges facing wild Pacific salmon. Landslides on the Fraser are not new. I have heard the ancient stories of how disruptions upriver affected the salmon returns for the W ̱ S Á NE Ć reef net fishing families in the Salish Sea. Landslides of the past have been survivable, but now wild...

Last week the Minister responsible for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, had to announce that only 13% of the sockeye the federal Ministry expected to enter the Fraser River system had actually showed up. It's another chapter in the epic tragedy of the disappearing salmon. They said the sockeye run this year would near 5 million fish. Just slightly more than 600,000 have come home. There is a lot of blame to go around. Seemingly, there are more excuses for the situation than actual fish in the river. Many of the causes they point to are legitimate problems: climate change, marine heat waves, the provincial liquidation of forests and unimpeded destruction of watersheds, and so on. There is also the other problem that we raised with the Minister: they can't count. It's not that the people at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans can't actually count, but rather they are woefully under-resourced so their ability to get accurate numb...