Thoughts on BC Politics and More

Living around the Salish Sea, we are all too familiar with the plight of the Southern Resident Killer Whales. We remember Tahlequah, the Orca who carried her dead calf for nearly three weeks in August 2018. It sent a message that captured global attention. The W ̱ S Á NE Ć people have a very close relationship with the Orca whales. They have fished the waters of the Georgia Strait alongside one another for generations. Now these magnificent creatures are at risk of extinction and both the Canadian and U.S. governments have listed them as endangered. The Orca is just one of more than 1800 species at risk of extinction in British Columbia. While our province is the most bio-diverse in the country, we are only one of three provinces that does not have species at risk legislation. Unfortunately, as we near the end of 2019, we are no closer to stand-alone legislation to protect the endangered species in the province. While the BC NDP government made the commit...

One of the more controversial actions of the provincial government, in recent years, is the attempt to protect caribou by shooting wolves from helicopters. We can all agree that many caribou herds in British Columbia are at a crisis level. Some herds have gone extinct, some are close to extinction and others are in decline. What is more difficult is what to do about the predicament we are in. So far, the response from the province is to blame the wolves for being such efficient predators. Humans however, seemingly take no responsibility for the ongoing effort we have undertaken to assist the wolves through our persistent habitat destruction. It's a challenge to see that the long-term solution for solving the caribou dilemma is to actually shoot wolf predation into non-existence. In Question Period I asked the Minister of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development, the Honourable Doug Donaldson, about the governments appr...