alexandra morton

Change.org|Free Online Petitions

Bill to make Disease Secret Withdrawn Amid Public Outcry

Minister McRae’s Bill 37 not going to make law

Victoria (May 31, 2012) In the face of enormous public outcry, agriculture Minister Don McRae quietly withdrew his Bill 37 that would have made disease reporting in animals an offence punishable by two years in prison and $75,000. The stated intent of the Bill was to encourage greater disease reporting by farmers in BC.

On May 3, Privacy Commissioner, Elizabeth Denham wrote a highly critical letter calling Minister McRae’s bill “extreme”, pointing out Bill 37 “would override the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act” saying “this is a matter of deep concern considering the importance of disease management” and tying it to salmon farming.

Citing the debate in the House between Official Opposition Critic for Agriculture, Lana Popham and McRae, arguing the definition of the word “person”, Andrew Gage of West Coast Environmental Law wrote McRae, “I strongly advise that you seek legal advice...”.

A change.org petition continues to grow targeting supermarket chains Loblaws, COSTCO and Safeway asking them to stop selling farm salmon that have tested positive for viruses.

On Tuesday, McRae began to retreat telling the media that he was going to amend his Bill to suggest that it would not apply to media or the public, only to government workers, but he left that on the order paper, never standing in Parliament to bring it forward.

“If Minister McRae wants higher disease reporting compliance, why didn’t he create a Bill to make it mandatory that all farmers in BC report disease, instead of attempting to take away free speech in violation of the Constitution of Canada,” says biologist Alexandra Morton. “I am deeply grateful for all the people who wrote McRae and signed the change.org petition, this was an extremely close call with oppression.”

Bill 37 could rise when the BC Legislature sits again.

Contact – Alexandra Morton 250-974-7086

Background on Bill 37, where did this attack on democracy come from?

In 2004, the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation made a Freedom of Information Request for specific salmon farm disease records. The Ministry of Agriculture refused this request and the issue came before the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner. In Order F10-06 the four big salmon farming companies operating in BC Marine Harvest, Mainstream, Grieg and Creative Salmon are all quoted threatening BC that they would never give the Province disease information again. The Commissioner ruled the information must be released, however T. Buck Suzuki Foundation decided not to release the information.

Regardless in April 2010, the salmon farmers made good on their threat and the Province of BC was no longer given access to dead farm salmon, even though the Provincial vet, Gary Marty, continued to perform private tests for the same companies. That month the three Norwegian operators signed a Memorandum of Understanding with each other to share information about viruses. Marine Harvest began repeatedly going to the provincial vet requesting tests for the exotic virus, Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISAv).

Though T. Buck Suzuki Foundation never released the data, the Cohen Commission did. In it were over 1,000 reports by the Gary Marty of “classic lesions” associated with Infectious Salmon Anemia, an exotic virus. This prompted Alexandra Morton to begin testing for ISA virus in BC.

Fall 2011, Simon Fraser University scientist, Dr. Rick Routledge and Morton begin receiving ISAv positive test results in wild salmon from the North Atlantic Veterinary College, one of two International certified labs for ISAv detection.

November 10, 2011, Minister McRae released a statement on saying: “Reckless allegations based on incomplete science can be devastating to these communities and unfair to the families that make a living from the sea. Since Premier Clark is currently on a trade mission to China, I have personally asked her to reassure our valued trading partners that now as always BC can be relied upon as a supplier of safe, sustainable seafood..” http://www.newsroom.gov.bc.ca/2011/11/test-results-indicate-no-confirmed-cases-of-isa.html

December 2011, Canadian Food Inspection Agency testified at the Cohen Commission:
…So if, let’s say, we do find ISA in B.C. 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. (Cohen Transcripts, December 19, pg. 118)

March 2011, Morton begins testing BC farm salmon in supermarkets in Vancouver and Victoria and receives ISAv positive test results for the most virulent mutations of ISAv and Norwegian salmon heart virus, piscine reovirus. The federal and provincial governments never follow up with their own testing. These viruses are being shipped in these fish throughout markets.

On March 27 McRae told the BC Parliament:"...when ISA was first talked about from the lab in P.E.I … There were lawmakers and legislators in the United States — various states bordering British Columbia — and some legislators in Asia who at that time were speculating and pushing for closing our market share." (March 27 Hansard Afternoon session)

May 28, The Province reports: The minister said he's having his staff look at options to deal with the perception that the new act will restrict free speech by citizens and journalists.
One option would be shelving the bill until after the summer recess, he said.
McRae didn't appear to favour that option, saying an outbreak this summer could occur without the new act's protective limits on free speech. http://www.theprovince.com/news/intent+muzzle+media+public+Minister/6689093/story.html

Minister McRae who do you serve?

The Government of British Columbia is preparing to ram through new legislation in a landslide of new bills that will make it a punishable offence to report disease in animals. Bill 37 will override the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, stating "a person must refuse, despite the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act,  to  disclose". It will give McRae broad discretionary powers during outbreaks of disease and give inspectors without qualifications or training to physically detain any person and remove anything they choose from the area.

West Coast Environmental Law suggests Bill 37 is not Constitutional in Canada, but that is will be up to citizens to pay for a costly constitutional challenge to straighten this out.

For me it means two years in jail if I report disease in farm salmon such as when I reported positive tests for Infectious Salmon Anemia virus and a Norwegian Heart virus - diseases the federal government and the salmon farming industry swear do not exist in BC.

This Bill has a history:

In 2004 the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation made an Freedom of Information Request for specific salmon farm disease records. The Ministry of Agriculture refused this request and the issue came before the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner. In Order F10-06 the four big salmon farming companies operating in BC Marine Harvest, Mainstream, Grieg and Creative Salmon are all quoted threatening BC that they would never give the Province disease information again.

And that is what they did. In April 2010 the Province of BC was no longer given access to dead farm salmon, even though the Provincial vet continued to perform private tests for the same companies. That month the three Norwegian operators signed a Memorandum of Understanding to share information about viruses with each other. Meanwhile, Marine Harvest was repeatedly going to the provincial vet for Infectious Salmon Anemia testing.

Even though T. Buck won the data - they also never released it, however, the Cohen Commission did. It was the over 1,000 reports by the Provicial vet of classic lesions associated with Infectious Salmon Anemia that prompted me to begin sampling wild and farm fish in supermarkets for this lethal salmon virus.

When we found Infectious Salmon Anemia virus - which is a world reportable disease, like bovine tuberculosis or hoof and mouth disease - Minister McRae jumped up and said:

“Reckless allegations based on incomplete science can be devastating to these communities and unfair to the families that make a living from the sea. Since Premier Clark is currently on a trade mission to China, I have personally asked her to reassure our valued trading partners that now as always BC can be relied upon as a supplier of safe, sustainable seafood..”

Shortly after the Canadian Food Inspection Agency testified at the Cohen Commission:

…So if, let’s say, we do find ISA in B.C. 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. (Cohen Transcripts, December 19, pg. 118)

On March 27 McRae told the BC Parliament:

"...when ISA was first talked about from the lab in P.E.I … There were lawmakers and legislators in the United States — various states bordering British Columbia — and some legislators in Asia who at that time were speculating and pushing for closing our market share." (March 27 Hansard Afternoon session)

So it sounds like China and the US were trying to close the border to BC farm salmon as a results of my tests. Minister McRae suggests Bill 37 is meant to encourage better reporting by the farmers. But why go to the lengths of violating the Constitution of Canada, threatening citizens with jail terms, and giving agriculture inspectors the right to detain people? Why not just make disease reporting mandatory for farmers to operate in BC?

Why not indeed.

There is a fascinating passage in an article by Eathan Baron in The Province. McRae acknowledges that the public is getting uneasy about the powers of this bill and says one option would be shelving the bill until after the summer recess, but the article goes on to say:

"McRae didn't appear to favour that option, saying an outbreak this summer could occur without the new act's protective limits on free speech."

The BC coast is rife with rumours right now that one of the companies is having an enormous, exploding problem with disease.

Minister McRae who are you serving, the public or a few companies using BC waters to raise their salmon? By you comment in the The Province are you suggesting unconstitutional limits to free speech are required ASAP this summer - can't wait till the fall?

Petition

Minister McRae Considers rewording his silence the messenger act

UPDATE 3:40 PM BC Parliament - Minister McRea SAID he was going to amend this bill, but all he did was put it on the paper, he never actually stood to bring it forward. He told the media he was making an amendment and didn't, so if this passes, I remain at risk of two years in prison for making any fighter disease results public.

This Bill may go against the constitution of Canada

The Public Health Association of BC has been contacted to review the implications of this for public health safety

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/McRae+considers+rewording+Animal+Health/6693069/story.html

However - think about this - why would he even want to silence the people on the front lines of epidemics? He says he is doing this to encourage farmers to report disease. Why not just make a law to make farmers report disease.

"So you can’t say what, you can’t say where and you can’t say who is responsible."

In a recent letter from Lana Popham NDP Agriculture Critic McRea says:

McRea....if a person involved in the media, an independent scientist or the general public were to inquire to the individual farmer about a test's results and the individual farmer wished to share them, he or she would be more than able to do so. If the farmer were to provide consent to the ministry, we would also be able to provide that information.

L. Popham: Well, that's the minister's interpretation, but I think that section 16 creates an obligation for the person to refuse to give information. In fact, that's exactly the point. If they don't refuse, they could be incarcerated; they could be charged. I mean, there are severe penalties for disclosure of this information.
Download Bill 37 Critic Response.docx (17.3K)

We are headed to the BC legislature in Victoria to see this thing come down, I hope you will considered joining us and/or writing to McRae or Lana Popham

The proceedings will be broadcast

The Legislative Assembly will be sitting:
Tuesday 10:00am- 12 noon, 1:30-6:30
Wednesday 1:30 - 9:00
Thursday 10:00-12 noon, 1:30-6:00

Write your newspaper, comment here, write the Premier, be heard or many of us will be silenced about the viruses seeping through our marine waters today.

Look Them in the EYE

There are moments in history and in the lives of people where threat creep towards them without cause for alarm, like the long sweep of a tsunami far out to sea and then suddenly makes landfall. History is full of them, human lives are ended by them. British Columbia, a nasty groundswell fundamental to your right to food security is approaching faster than a galloping horse to make landfall and history in the BC Parliament in the coming days. Please wake up.

In the coming few days, the Liberal government of BC intends to pass Bill 37, which makes sickness in farm animals a secret. When I read the BC farm salmon disease records released by Justice Cohen, my colleagues and I began testing for salmon influenza and heart viruses and found them. The federal and provincial governments and the salmon farming industry stubbornly, and without stated rational reason, refuse to even investigate these reports from top laboratories that these viruses are in farm salmon being sold in Vancouver and Victoria markets.

Provincial Minister of Agriculture, Don McRae, stood in the BC Parliament on the afternoon of March 27 to state that Asian and US legislators wanted to close their doors to BC farm salmon following positive tests for salmon flu virus. What were they told to reverse this decision?

I now have over 600 samples of farm salmon, wild salmon, Oolichans and steelhead in labs and if Minister McRae’s Bill 37 passes I won’t be able to tell you what is in those fish without facing punishment of 2 years in prison. First Nation friends liken the arrival of these European salmon and heart viruses to the small pox infested blankets given to them to control them. Officials with the government of Canada and the Province of BC called viral contamination via Atlantic salmon eggs “guaranteed,” but they were silenced by threat of international trade sanctions. And so the eggs poured in, the viruses came with them. All the players knew. And now those of us who have found these viruses will be silenced in the name of keeping open trade borders. Is the premise on which these borders remain open honest?

Wild salmon are the bloodstream of this coast. As this law no one can quite believe approaches we receive news of new viral epidemics in the industrial salmon weekly. Without people willing to ground-truth this industry by tracking their viruses, what do you think it going to happen to these reports?

Today a lawyer went into the BC Parliament, to witness landfall by this tsunami whose undertow will tear democracy and free speech from our very bodies. I want to look the men and women who would do this to us, to our children and to the earth, in the eye as they make sickness in our food secret.

Industrial salmon taking us where?

Alexandra Morton

Petition

Dear CFIA why are you ignoring ISA virus?

There is an article featuring my work on the cover of the Seattle Times today

Below is a letter sent to The Canadian Food Inspection Agency today:

Dear Nathalie Bruneau:

On May 14, 2012, I attended the CFIA meeting in Port Hardy, to inform First Nations of the CFIA surveillance initiative to "provide additional evidence to update the status of three diseases of significance in anadromous salmonid populations in BC." ISA virus is one of the three diseases of significance listed by the CFIA in this initiative. You asked First Nations to contact the CFIA if they saw evidence of the 3 viruses of concern. You informed us the ISA virus is your file.

At this meeting, I asked you what follow-up the CFIA had engaged in after receiving positive test results from an OIE reference lab for ISA virus in BC farmed salmon I bought in T & T markets in Vancouver BC earlier this year. Dr. Fred Kibenge, who runs the OIE reference lab for ISA virus, reported the HPR7b and HPR5 mutations. The owner of the supermarket chain, Loblaw, confirmed these fish had been reared in British Columbia net pens.

You responded that there has been no follow up by the CFIA to these ISA virus positive tests. I also related to you that the OIE reference lab had sequenced HPR5 from a female chum salmon in the Vedder River. The Vedder River receives water from Cultus Lake, where DFO got 100% ISAv test results in sockeye salmon, but never released those results to the Cohen Commission Inquiry into the Decline of the Fraser Sockeye, nor followed up with any subsequent tests as per the testimony of Dr. Simon Jones of the Pacific Biological Station. Again you indicated there had been no follow up. I asked if there had been follow-up on the ISAv positive results produced by the DFO Miller Lab in the Creative Salmon farms at Dawley and Indian sites, again I heard you say there had been no follow by the CFIA.

Dr. Con Kiley was attending by phone and indicated that the CFIA was aware of these test results. I know the OIE lab is reporting to the CFIA.

I am writing to ask for clarification. When an OIE reference lab reports several PCR positives for virulent ISA virus mutations from a group of salmon, in this case fresh salmon for sale in one supermarket chain, on one date, in one region (the city of Vancouver) is the accepted international protocol to ignore the results?

We did discuss this briefly during the meeting and you expressed concern that I did not have chain of custody. However, when people suffer ingestion of e. coli, for example, from supermarkets the CFIA investigates despite lack of chain of custody and identifies the source of the pathogen. Documentation does accompany each shipment of BC farm salmon to the stores that would allow the CFIA to trace it to a farm and run their own tests.

In reading International Response to Infectious Salmon Anemia: Preventaion, Control and Eradication, the authors make it sound like this is a serious disease that the world wants to control.

Since the US shares marine waters with BC and BC is shipping the product fresh over the border to the US, this seems an international issue. There is also the issue of Washington State eggs travelling to Chile. Until there is follow up testing, the way things stand today a BC salmon farm or farms has or had ISA virus positive fish infected with highly virulent strains held in net pens somewhere in BC.

The Minister of Agriculture Don McRae has tabled a Bill that legal minds in BC believe will prevent me from further testing and reporting ISAv and the piscine reovirus which is highly prevalent in BC farm salmon in supermarkets. I am writing this letter today, because it may be a punishable offence in BC to write you later this week about ISA virus in salmon purchased in T & T Supermarkets in Vancouver.

So with this letter I am asking for confirmation that the CFIA is ignoring ISAv positive tests from the OIE reference lab and I would like to understand more fully why. My concern is for the wild salmon of British Columbia and perhaps I misunderstand the regulations, does the CFIA only respond to pathogens known to harm humans?

Respectfully,

Alexandra Morton