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