alexandra morton

February 2012

Dear Minister Ashfield:

I am writing to ask you to explain why feedlot salmon packers are not required to display fishing license numbers on their boats, like all other commercial vessels moving fish over Canadian waters and to explain why there are no by-catch observers/cameras on salmon feedlot operations.

BC Supreme Court decision Morton vs. Marine Harvest ruled it is the same ocean inside the pens as outside the pens. Thus salmon “farming” became a fishery to be regulated as a fishery.

In this picture taken on February 16, 2012, there is no visible fishing license on the Orca Chief, built in Norway owned by MARINE HARVEST CANADA INC, listed as a PACKER/BAIT/TRANSFER

While described as “packer” the ORCA CHIEF is not listed as a Canadian Fishing Vessel

Please explain why this vessel does not have an “AS” license as it receives salmon from the ocean caught with a seine net, and a “D” license for packing these fish and the associated by-catch.

I spoke to the CEO of Marine Harvest, Ase Michelet, about this in Norway in 2009 unfortunately she was fired and never got back to me, though she did express concern.

I also want you to explain why you require observers and cameras on fishing vessels to measure by-catch, but you don’t apply the same rules for the salmon feedlot fishery. Marine Harvest plead guilty to having wild fish in their boat and pens in Regina vs. Marine Harvest Canada Inc:

“It was known to the company that there was some herring mixed in amongst the Atlantic salmon that they were intending to move from one site to the other. The process generally involves in essence a large pipe from which the salmon and other fish that might be caught there are brought onto the vessel and then ultimately it makes its way to the grow-out site.” (Port Hardy Court Transcript, Jan 18, 2012)

“…the vast majority of the herring simply made their way at that point back out into the ocean so they are returned in essence unharmed” (Port Hardy Court Transcript, Jan 18, 2012)

Frankly speaking sir, I do not believe this. The reports that came to me were that tons of herring were destroyed and disposed of at the SEA SOIL plant in Telegraph Cove. However, what we learned from this testimony by the Department of Justice is that wild herring were sucked out of a Marine Harvest salmon feedlot into a vessel working for Marine Harvest. As the Department of Justice lawyer continues:

“And I should note that the local herring fishery here is closed and has been for sometime due to conservation concerns...” (Port Hardy Court Transcript, Jan 18, 2012)

The testimony continues:

“there had been a previous incident that involved Marine Harvest and ultimately is the count -- or the subject of Counts 1 and 2 in the information. That incident took place at June -- in June of 2009 and it involved a brood stock transfer, so the largest of the Atlantic salmon being taken to the hatchery ultimately for harvesting to repeat the cycle of the Atlantic salmon. In the course of that operation a small number of juvenile pink salmon were entrained with these large Atlantics and ultimately a small number were ultimately recovered dead on the dock in Port McNeill” (Port Hardy Court Transcript, Jan 18, 2012)

Download 140592.ELECTRONIC.Jan 18 12.sentence.docm (50.5K)

With all due respect, the Department of Justice lawyer had no visual evidence to confirm it was “a small number” of wild salmon. I watched this operation. The only pink salmon visible are the ones that spill out of the bucket as it is lifted by the crane. Only Marine Harvest knows how many remained in that bucket, were poured into the tanks on the truck and taken to the hatchery. These juvenile wild salmon were from Knight Inlet, also a stock of concern, protected by recent commercial fishing closures.

This is a situation where only the fox knows how many chickens he has killed and you have not extended this generosity to commercial fishermen. I am writing to request your permission to enter feedlot salmon processing plants this spring to examine the guts removed from feedlot salmon for wild fish. I am writing to ask you to explain why the Orca Chief is moving fish over Canadian marine waters without a fishing license. And I am writing to tell you that to fulfill your responsibility as Minster of the federal agency tasked with protecting Canada’s fisheries you need to place cameras and observers on feedlot salmon packers and pens as the nets are dried up and in the plants as feedlot salmon are processed.

I await your response with several thousand concerned people.

Alexandra Morton

Dear Justice Adair

Feb. 20, 2012

Dear Justice Adair

I don’t know if the legal system allows you to hear me, but there are things that need to be said in the name of truth. To win their defamation case Mainstream brought forward evidence regarding Don Staniford, but some of it was not accurate.

You were told Don Staniford threw mud at the Mainstream office in Campbell River. I was there, that never happened. A small group of us asked Mainstream to look at waste collected from the seafloor near salmon farms in Broughton. They refused, locked the door and took pictures from their upstairs windows. Here I am asking them to come down.

I put a few cups of the waste on this fish cutout.

I then pressed it against their logo in a symbolic gesture to communicate that we don’t want this on the sea floor anymore than they want it on their window. While they could clean it with a short blast of a hose, we are stuck with it indefinitely on the seafloor. No one threw any of the farm waste and Mainstream should know this because they were photographing us.

Staniford told the court 5,000-7,000 people gathered in Victoria for the GET OUT migration (referring to salmon feedlots get out of the ocean). The Mainstream lawyer told you the Vancouver Sun reported only about 1,000 people. Mainstream used this to paint Staniford as a liar. While the lawyer quoted the Vancouver Sun correctly, he should have known that number was highly controversial. I spoke to the security guards present and based on the area of the grounds covered, they estimated 5,000-7,000 people. Please look at this slide show– I think it is dangerous when society makes people disappear by rewriting history.

The GET OUT MIGRATION - SLIDESHOW

And finally, when the Mainstream lawyers told you salmon farms are good for small communities, you should know Echo Bay was a lovely little community. We believed when we were told salmon farms would be good for us. But they weren’t. There are 27 Norwegian-owned salmon farms now and only 8 people left in Echo Bay. We have toxic algae blooms, there have been viral and bacterial epidemics, sea lice epidemics, young herring and salmon are lured into the pens. We don’t have wild salmon, almost no one fishes there anymore and the fish don’t come back.

We have the highest salmon farm density in BC, salmon farming is not good for Echo Bay

Alexandra Morton

To the Norwegian Embassy in Ottawa

To Her Excellency Else Berit Eikeland emb.ottawa@mfa.no
Norwegian Ambassador to Canada

and

Trade Commissioner and Consul
Mr. Arnfinn Hattrem

I am writing in regard to the exceptional circumstances of the Staniford vs Mainstream defamation trial ending today in Vancouver.

While Mr Staniford never named Mainstream in his campaign that drew parallels between the way Big Tobacco covered the truth about their product and the way the 92% Norwegian - owned salmon farming industry is operating in BC, Mainstream is suing Staniford. Evidence was heard that despite the industry being aware of cancer causing contaminants in farm salmon, they produced an ad campaign in BC with the text:

“Farmed salmon is natural, nutritious and free of contaminants”

Cermaq, Mainstream's parent company, is largely owned by the Norwegian government. In 2010, Norway's Nobel Peace prize was awarded to a free speech dissident in China. China retaliated by making it nearly impossible to export Norwegian farm salmon into China. They sited bacterial contamination. The many articles on this suggest this created extreme hardship for Norwegian salmon farmers, who had invested large sums courting China's fresh salmon market. Some articles suggest that Norwegian fish farmers pressured Norway to fix this. Is the Staniford trial, Norway's response?

Last fall we received European ISA virus positive test results from the OIE reference lab for ISA virus in BC wild salmon. The BC Minister of Agriculture and Foods, Don McRae responded immediately to say BC's Premier would personally inform China that these reports were false, that there is no ISA virus in BC.

Later Dr. Klotins of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) testified at the Cohen Inquiry in December:

DR KLOTINS: " …So if, let’s say, we do find ISA in BC and all of a sudden markets are closed, our role [CFIA] is then to try to renegotiate or negotiate market access to those countries. Now what it will be is a matter of they'll let us know what the requirements are. We'll let them know what we can do and whether we can meet that market access. If we can't meet it, then there will be no trade basically."

BC farm salmon sales to China jumped from $249,000 to $3.8 million between 2010 and 2011. So what the Norwegians companies lost in Norway they perhaps made up with their BC operations. China is clearly essential to Norway's salmon farmers in BC as the price of farm salmon is collapsing worldwide and Norwegian companies in BC are firing people and downsizing. I don't know why ISA virus is sensitive subject to China, but clearly it is to have a minister make such a statement in the face of the evidence.

In an extraordinary turn of events, Mainstream has recently requested that Justice Adair consider all the evidence of the 20-day trial, today, the last day of the trial, and to make a decision today whether to grant an immediate injunction against Mr. Staniford and others speaking about salmon farming. Canada is deporting Staniford before the end of the month.

In the course of the Cohen Inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser sockeye a document was produced by Canada and included in a report that was made an exhibit it is an email from Georges Lemieux, senior trade commissioner with the Canadian Embassy in Oslo. It includes:

"The list of “challenges” for Cermaq in Canada is narrowed down to: lack of long term policy and strategy for aquaculture development; lack of skilled labour in remote communities, .... Complexity of negotiations with Fist Nations and difficulty bringing these to conclusion within a specified time frame, lack of insurance to take into consideration BC’s specific environment, and desire for more support from governments in countering myths and disinformation about the aquaculture industry. Cermaq maintains that they have instituted sound environmental and health practices in their BC operations (in contrast to some investors, past and present). It is interesting to note that aquaculture in Norway does not attract the criticism of the environmental groups that is has in Canada. On the latter, we provided Isaksen the link to DFO’s “Myths and realities about salmon farming” which he deemed a good start but would like to see better marketed and publicized to balance NGO’s claims about the industry.
Cermaq is also frustrated that permits to increase production (more sites or increased production in existing sites) in British Columbia are often bogged down in lengthy negotiations involving a confusing number of players without a clear support for the industry from the Government. Mr. Isaksen finds negotiations with First Nations (Mainstream’s 30 sites puts them in contact with 12 different bands) particularly difficult noting “go/no-go” deadlines …."

From this it suggests that Cermaq asked the Canadian Government to sell the salmon farming industry to the people of Canada, that Canada complied and Cermaq considered this a good start, but not enough to win public opinion.

I am writing to ask if the Norwegian government is possibly reaching into the courts of Canada, through Mainstream, a wholly owned subsidiary, to silence Mr. Staniford to make up for the problems caused by the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize. Is Norway taking away free speech from one man because of the events set in motion by awarding a very different man for free speech? Is the Norwegian government doing this because they cannot retract the Nobel Peace prize, as the government is not in control of this prize? And finally does this represent the Norwegian people fairly?

Alexandra Morton

Norway - has free speech become too expensive?

Tomorrow, a judge in a BC court will be asked to make an instantaneous decision on day 20 of a 20-day trial whether to grant an injunction against Don Staniford speaking about the fish farm industry.

Standing in a hurricane we cannot see the pattern - that the storm tearing up the world is circular, that it reaches into the global stratosphere. Similarly, the proceedings in courtroom #52, Vancouver Law Courts would have little significance if you could not see the roles of Norway, China, Premier Christy Clark and shareholders. The defamation hearing Staniford vs. Mainstream is a test – can the corporate world tolerate democracy.

Big tobacco and Norwegian salmon feedlots hired the same strategist - Hill and Knowlton. The Tobacco Industry knew their product was suspect in killing people, and so it took skilled professionals to get people to keep buying cigarettes. Hill and Knowlton are top-flight, known for managing public relations for the Gulf War, the Exxon oil spill in Alaska, the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster and the massacre at Tiananmen Square. The salmon farmers have spent millions advertising just in the last two years.

But truth is more powerful.

Staniford used cigarette pack imagery (http://salmonfarmingkills.com) to make the point that farm salmon contain cancer-causing chemicals, that they are spreading like a cancer choking off wild salmon migration routes and otherwise harming oceans worldwide. Staniford never named Mainstream in these graphics, but BC salmon farming is 92% Norwegian owned and Norway is the biggest shareholder in Mainstream’s parent company, Cermaq. So through Mainstream, Norway is attempting to protect its industry, calling for an immediate gag order on Staniford and $1 million in damages.

Why such a big response to a guy with big mouth and no money?

Under the watchful eye of Justice Adair we saw evidence that the salmon farming industry knew cancer-causing chemicals are in their product even as they targeted pregnant women to eat more farm salmon:
In 2011, a multi-million dollar ad campaign put fish farm propaganda in our mailboxes saying;

“Farmed salmon is natural, nutritious and free of contaminants”

They know there are contaminants in farm salmon, but they paid huge bucks to tell British Columbians there are none.

While the salmon farming industry has the resources to hire Hill and Knowlton, Staniford’s tools are biting satire, superheroes, three websites, a Captain Condom suit and edgy, British humor. He knows people won’t read dry exposés on the industry. So he pushed the limits and Norway is pushing back hard. Mr. Wotherspoon, commercial litigation lawyer for Fasken Martineau, with 9 offices around the world, is asking Justice Adair for an immediate gag order on Mr. Staniford to shut him up for the few remaining weeks he is in British Columbia, before he is deported.

Norwegians should be concerned about this. In 2010, the Norwegian Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to Chinese free speech dissident, Lui Xiaobo. When Norwegian actress Liv Ullmann accepted the award on Xiaobo’s behalf she said;

“To strangle freedom of speech is to trample on human rights, stifle humanity, and suppress truth.”

China took offence and imposed new rules concerning import of Norwegian farm salmon causing a 68% decline in shipments of Norwegian farm salmon to China. Massive stores of farm salmon rotted in warehouses.

While they are vulnerable to the trade winds they create, society’s rapacious corporate giants can save themselves from the spin of the vortex merely by leaning on another leg in another country. What Norway’s salmon feedlot operators lost in Norway, they gained in BC. BC farm salmon export to China skyrocketed from $249,000 in 2010 to more than $3.8 million in 2011 (Vancouver Sun, Feb 2012).

Now, however, free speech is threatening the profitable BC / China farm salmon connection. Staniford keeps saying salmon farming spreads disease. Indeed the ISA virus, the most lethal virus known to salmon and a form of influenza spread from Norway to Chile in 2007 causing 2 $billion dollars of damage. When my colleagues and I reported European strain ISA virus positive tests here in BC, what did the provincial Minister of Agriculture, Don McRae do? He made a statement that Premier Christy Clark would personally tell China we do not have ISA virus in BC. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency testified at the Cohen Inquiry in December that if ISA virus is in BC, trade in farm salmon could cease.

Recent industry trade paper headlines make it clear the farm salmon market is collapsing, because there is too much uneaten farm salmon on the market driving prices down below cost. Two weeks ago the US lifted a 20-year 24% duty on Norwegian farm salmon. This will allow Norwegian companied to sell more farm salmon to the U.S. and might save the motherships, but it puts their BC companies at greater risk. Farm salmon companies in BC report firing people and downsizing, they cannot survive without the Chinese market.
And so gale force winds spawned on the other side of the planet when Norway awarded one man for free speech have slammed into a small courtroom in Vancouver where Norway seeks to take free speech away from another man. The structure of the courts and democracy are creaking, rivets popping, paint peeling.

Norway I want to say to you - ISA virus is in BC, cancer-causing chemicals are in your fish, you do use BC as a dump as your companies never shovel their manure and wild fish are being killed in your pens. You can silence Staniford, but at what cost? You won’t hide these truths, because they are lying around in evidence everywhere. Corporations are like addicts they can’t stop themselves. They are blind to everything, but the next quarter. What does it mean when you hand out the Nobel Peace prize in one part of the world and then work to erode democracy where it has become inconvenient to business?

We all have to ask ourselves - what kind of world we want to exist in?

Petition to NAAEC Canada violating Fisheries Act with salmon feedlots

Today I joined the Center for Biological Diversity, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the Kwikwasu'tinuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation to file a formal petition today requesting an international investigation into Canada’s failure to protect wild salmon in British Columbia from disease and parasites in industrial fish feedlots. The petition was submitted to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation — an environmental side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement — and seeks enforcement of Canada’s Fisheries Act.Download Farmed salmon NAFTA petition 2-7-12 copy 2.pdf (2118.1K)

Fraser sockeye infected with European salmon feedlot virus?

"The Canadian inquiry into the collapse of Fraser River sockeye, the largest salmon-producing river in the world, suggests the primarily Norwegian-owned British Columbia salmon-farming industry exerts trade pressures that exceed Canada's political will to protect wild salmon,” said biologist Alexandra Morton with the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society. “Releasing viruses into native ecosystems is an irrevocable threat to biodiversity, yet Canada seems to have no mechanism to prevent salmon-farm diseases from afflicting wild salmon throughout the entire North Pacific."

Canada has permitted more than 100 industrial salmon feedlots in British Columbia to operate along wild salmon migration routes, exposing ecologically and economically valuable salmon runs to epidemics of disease, parasites, toxic chemicals and concentrated waste. The petition documents Canada’s failure to enforce the Fisheries Act in allowing industrial aquaculture to erode the capacity of ecosystems to support wild salmon. The proliferation of salmon feedlots is linked to dramatic declines in British Columbia’s wild salmon populations and the detection of a lethal salmon virus.

100 people paddle for 7 days down Fraser River to demand salmon feedlot disease records

“Fish farms in Canada are an unholy marriage between various levels of the Canadian governments and foreign-owned companies,” said Chief Bob Chamberlain of the Kwikwasu'tinuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation. “We continue to explore, identify and act upon whatever means possible to rid our traditional territories of open net cage fish farms.”

“The Canadian government’s disregard for wild salmon stocks in pandering to multinational salmon farming corporations is outrageous,” said Zeke Grader, director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “Salmon feedlots put wild salmon, the communities that depend upon them, a billion-dollar fishing industry, tens of thousands of fishing jobs, and our nations' shared natural heritage at risk of extinction."

“Industrial salmon feedlots function as disease-breeding factories, allowing parasites and diseases to reproduce at unnaturally high rates,” said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Marine feedlot waste flows directly, untreated, into contact with wild salmon. Putting feedlots hosting a toxic soup of bacteria, parasites, viruses and sea lice on wild fish migration routes is the height of biological insanity.”

When a country signatory to NAFTA fails to enforce its environmental laws, any party may petition for enforcement. Canada’s Fisheries Act prohibits harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat or addition of “deleterious substances.” The petitioners seek an investigation and finding by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation that Canada is violating its Fisheries Act with regard to industrial aquaculture. Such a finding could lead to international action to force Canada to protect wild salmon, ideally by relocating fish aquaculture into contained tanks on land.

“Applying the Fisheries Act to fish feedlots as it is applied to all other marine users and removing feedlots from salmon migration routes will benefit wild fish and the economy of British Columbia,” said Miller. “Moving to contained aquaculture on land will benefit areas starved for employment and clean up the rivers to restore wild salmon runs.”

Scientific evidence of harm to wild salmon swimming through BC waters from fish feedlots has been mounting, as has public concern over the potential for feedlots to spread epidemic diseases that jeopardize the health of every other wild salmon run along the Pacific Coast, since these fish stocks mingle in the ocean and estuaries.

The Canadian petitioners are the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society in B.C. and Kwikwasu'tinuxw Haxwa'mis First Nation, a native tribe of Vancouver Island. The U.S. petitioners are the Center for Biological Diversity and the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the largest trade association of commercial fishers on the west coast representing family fishing men and women. The University of Denver Environmental Law Clinic helped prepare and submit the petition.

Download Backgrounder.doc (33.0K)

Free Speech on Trial

What options are open to a person with no money who sees a wrong and wants to right it? What if it involves an international corporation, largely owned by a wealth country? This is the case of Don Staniford vs Mainstream from Norway.

While many environmental groups have worked to protect wild salmon from the disease and pollution of net pen salmon feedlots, they worked within the constraints of their funders. Big money runs with big money and so big funding makes environmental groups docile. It is incremental, small slips until environmental groups can find themselves supporting the very thing they are fighting. This happened with salmon farming. Most of BC’s large environmental groups formed an alliance, funding came to work things out with the fish farmers and soon they were supporting the doubling in size of the salmon farms.

I don’t think big environmentalism works because they become dependent on exactly the mechanism that is crushing life out of this planet. Can anyone name the enviro groups with money to fight salmon farms in BC? Have they become invisible within corporate partnerships?

What does environmentalism without big funding look like? That is how I work and that is how Don Staniford operates.

Don Staniford picked up humor, satire and in your face graphics as his tool to pry salmon farms away from wild salmon. He posted graphics of cigarette packs with warnings printed them: “Salmon Farming kills,” “Salmon Farming Spreads Disease” “Salmon Farms are Cancer.” (website)

He dared to compare the salmon farming industry’s advertising to big tobacco and salmon feedlots to cancer. Although Staniford never named Mainstream, they came after him. Mainstream, largely owned by Norway, which is mother to this dirty industry, threatened Staniford. Cease and desist, apologize, remove the statements in five days or else they would file a civil claim. With no salary, no money at all, Don wrote a 67-page report detailing how salmon feedlots are like cancer, attached a graphic cigarette package with the one finger salute and said, “Bring it on.”

The 20-trial is now underway in the law courts of Vancouver. Hundreds of donations, most $20-$100 have flooded in to pay his lawyer, David Sutherland. Money is coming even from Norway where people who want wild salmon to survive understand this is a global industry. The courtroom has filled more each day with the people who are attached to wild salmon. The story of big salmon farming is being told, but it is free-speech itself that is on trial.

Why does Don Staniford say salmon farms are like the tobacco industry? Here is just a fraction of what has been reveled in courtroom #52, Vancouver Law Courts, corner of Nelson and Hornby:

2002 – Scientific paper published in Chemosphere reports: “relatively high concentrations of PCBs” in Scottish farm salmon warning, “…high consumption of salmon, particularly by children under 4 years, could lead to intakes above the tolerable daily intake …. Of these chemicals.” (Download Jacobs.pdf (146.0K))

2002 – A second scientific paper in Chemosphere found because farmed salmon are intentionally fattened, PCBS collect in the fat at 5 – 10 times the levels found in average wild salmon. It was suggested that “Frequent farmed salmon eaters may exceed government health limits for these pollutants, which are linked to immune system damage, fetal brain damage, and cancer” (paper)

2004 – Scientific paper in the journal of SCIENCE analyzed over 2 metric tons of farmed and wild salmon from around the world and reported consumption of farmed Atlantic salmon may pose a health risk.

2007 – Salmon of the Americas, a non-profit trade organization, whose mission is to educate consumers recommends pregnant mothers eat farm salmon suggesting it will make their babies more healthy and intelligent!!!

The Pure Salmon Campaign retaliates with a N.Y. Times Download nyt_ad copy.pdf (151.0K)

2011 – BC Salmon farming corporations join forces to pay for a multi-million dollar ad campaign that suggests farm salmon are free of contaminants.Download NoAddedChemicalsMHBCSalmon4C300.jpg (2983.9K)

Don does not have $ millions and so he communicates with humor, often biting and satirical. He uses comic shock and awe in his blogs. He uses cartoons, movie clips, album covers. He can’t afford to send multi-page newspaper adverts to households throughout BC. He can’t afford to advertise on the Canucks website or buy prime time TV ads.

I have worked with Don for years. Together with graphic artist Anissa Reed we led the GET OUT Migration, the biggest BC environmental rally ever - to tell the BC government to get salmon farms out of the ocean. We led a group of 100 people down the lower Fraser River in canoes and through the streets of Vancouver to ask Justice Bruce Cohen to release the farm salmon disease records – which he did. We visited federal campaign offices around BC to ask candidates in the last election if they would protect wild salmon and found the Conservatives could not say yes, even if some looked like they wanted to. We sampled rivers for ISA virus, when DFO would not and this led to the re-opening of the Cohen Inquiry which exposed the government cover-up of the most lethal virus known to salmon.

In cross examination, the salmon farm lawyer, Mr. Wotherspoon asked Staniford whether he considered the single finger salute a respectful response to his letter threatening to sue Don.

He asked Don if he considered the feelings of Mary Ellen Walling – director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, a person paid to promote salmon farms - before he blogged about her.

Don replied they are public figures and in Canada people are still free to express opinion. Don said he holds the industry as disrespectful for using their money to convince pregnant women and the rest of us to eat more farm salmon, when science recommends limiting consumption because of cancer-causing toxins. He explained he sees farm salmon like cancer cells. His description brings to mind growths proliferating on wild salmon migration routes, metastasizing to grow new farms/tumours, choking off the flow of wild salmon.

I have questioned Don many times about his use of raw, in-your-face-humour and every time he has given me a well-reasoned response. His methods are thought-out, designed to refute ads the salmon farming industry has spent several million dollars on. All he has are his wits and words. He has investigated this industry worldwide, met with Norwegian politicians, Chilean labour leaders, and Canadian First Nations. As a result, he has made up his mind this industry is unethical, immoral and harmful. His tool is free speech and it is free speech that hangs in the balance of this rare defamation case.

He poked this beast and it turned on him. I think they have made a mistake. I don’t think they know what they are up against. He will be deported after the trial, but will be going to Norway to work with the Green Warriors.

In closing, Mr. Wotherspoon lawyer for Mainstream challenged Don's testimony that thousands of people gathered on the Legislature lawn to tell the BC government to get this industry away from wild salmon, get it out of the ocean. Mr. Wotherspoon quoted the Vancouver Sun reporting there were almost 1,000 people.

For all of you who were there - we will need to stand up again. If you were there, wanted to be there, or would be there in the future - write to Premier Christy Clark and tell her how you feel about salmon feedlots premier@gov.bc.ca

Donate to Don's legal fund: http://www.gofundme.com/donstaniford

Or fund my ongoing efforts in BC - salmonaresacred.org