Bill 37 pulled!!!!

[lorneparker1]

Now this is second hand info, so im always uneasy about posting without knowing 100%, but id say im 98%, my info is from a pretty credible Source. But i heard that the bill Donald McCrae Tabled to silence anyone speaking about disease in farming was tossed out today, by some heavy critics from other parties, and Alexandra and her team. If you dont know what I'm talking about here is a quick run down.

http://www.pacificfreepress.com/new...something-rotten-in-bcs-fish-farm-debate.html

The big part is ...


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 McRea broad discretionary powers during outbreaks of disease and give inspectors without qualifications or training [authority] to physically detain any person and remove anything they choose from the area.

Which to me and MANY others reads it is an offence with a jail sentenace to talk about disease in farming (namely fish farms), which is a huge communist move IMO.
This lady

http://www.leg.bc.ca/mla/39thParl/pophaml.htm had alot to do with it.

This is huge win as bills being tabled by cabinet ministers being pulled doesnt happen often. Maybe there is some hope for our system.....

I only have one thing to say and its F@$*@ you McCrae.

Lorne

 

[stones93]

Don't get me excited!!!! This has been on my mind non-stop, please please be true!

....next battle, allow proper science to be done on fish farms with INDEPENDENT testing and monitoring! (or just get rid of the flippin things, Atlantic salmon suck anyways)

 

[Theb55]

Interesting you say this because I came across an item in the news that said the bill was passed today, leaving in tact the FOI exemptions. Basically the bill passed as presented and will become law as soon as it is signed off by the Lieutenant Governor. So now you can be imprisoned if you mention a virus in the fish farms. Government said it was too unfair to the fish farms having someone speak of viruses. I guess Morton will be jailed shortly. They also intend to feed diseased fish to the public, saying the viruses have been extensively studied and are not harmful to humans. Fish don't matter.

 

[Rockfish]

Now this is second hand info, so im always uneasy about posting without knowing 100%, but id say im 98%, my info is from a pretty credible Source. But i heard that the bill Donald McCrae Tabled to silence anyone speaking about disease in farming was tossed out today, by some heavy critics from other parties, and Alexandra and her team".


http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/Province+alters+controversial+Animal+Health/6700402/story.html

I hope you are correct but I think you may be mistaken. It looks like they may change the wording so that disclosure penalties ONLY (the arguments for doing this at all are weak) apply to Government staff and labs that are involved in administrating the act. I think it will be rare from now on to hear about much when it comes to fish farm diseases.

Further the exception for deigning FOI requests still exists; even years later on information where there was a confirmed virus or disease found. There is in my opinion no reason for this other than protecting the industry from public scrutiny and not providing the opponents of this industry credible ammunition that the industry and their government supporters could not question (their own).

Morton can continue to test but they can continue to spend millions on spin to attack her credibility (not a real scientist like the ones they pay) and collection methods as they cannot attack the credibility of the labs she uses.

Still the BC liberals blinked and because of the public backlash Morton is protected and has gained credibility, while the industry has lost even more of what little they and their Government and DFO cheerleaders had.

More importantly ,the USA appears to be very concerned about diseases in open pen fish farms in Canada now that the disease are showing up in the few Washington fish farms that still exist. I also think they have lost trust in our industry and our government regulators, but then they are not alone in that.

 

[lorneparker1]

Well I hope you are wrong. Lol but Thats why I gave my self that 2 percent fudge factor hahah. Sound alike some may have jumped the gun. Guess we will see

 

[IronNoggin]

Nope! NOT Pulled unfortunately...

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/Province+alters+controversial+Animal+Health/6700402/story.html

Just a minor change.

Bummer! I was hoping...
Nog

 

[Lipripper]

It is pulled for the spring session as they have no time to get through with all the bills they are trying to get through before tomorrow.

It will still be around though for a future session.

At least that's how I heard it on the CFAX 6 news

 

[salmonkiller01]

Canada is following the same mistakes that the U.S has made, let the corporations run the country and pass laws that only help the corporations. Worked real well in their banking laws and also allowing jobs to be sent offshore for cheap labor.
Why not pass a law that also stops reports on oil pipeline leaks and tanker spills so when the northern gateway goes ahead it can't be reported on. Just sickening!

I say for the rest of their term Harper is refered to as Hitler and Kristy Clark can be refered as Colenal Klink.Idiots

I wonder if the fish farms will send memo's to their share holders not to eat farmed fish that have diseases, that are going to be sold in stores.

 

[stones93]

A small ray of Sunshine. In Vancouver that is rare but can fire up a city pretty quick. Lets not think this is done by any means! Let keep talking about it and let others decide for themselves. The issue speaks for itself to anyone who isn't on the proverbial moon!

It is pulled for the spring session as they have no time to get through with all the bills they are trying to get through before tomorrow.

It will still be around though for a future session.

At least that's how I heard it on the CFAX 6 news

 

[Foxsea]

Hello from Alex:

Almost unbelievably Minister Don McRae's Bill 37 has been withdrawn. It remains on the order paper, but will not be revisited in this sitting of the BC Legislature! The Liberals have cancelled the fall sitting, so it won't come up for another year. Therefore, we are free to continue tracking these viruses, figuring out which ones are present and where and what they are doing. The threat of prison was extremely unpleasant, but we had decided to challenge the act had it passed - a number of lawyers thought it was unconstitutional.

I want to thank all of you who wrote letters, posted comments on the Salmon Are Sacred facebook page, signed the petition (please keep signing). Lana Popham, Michael Sather, and Scott Fraser are fantastic wild salmon warrior MLAs, Bea Olivastri of Friends of the Earth wrote a press release on this Bill from Ottawa this morning, Andrew Gage of West Coast Environmental Law wrote a powerful critique of the Bill in a letter to McRae, Elizabeth Denham, BC Information and Privacy Commissioner also wrote a powerful letter to McRae laying out the implications of his draconian bill. Karen Wristen, Greg McDade, John Davis, Jeff Jones, David Sutherland, Vince Gogolek all lawyers whose response to the bill helped us sort this out. Thank you to everyone who donated - so glad we can use the money for testing now! Thank you Ethan Baron for the fantastic reporting that first alerted us and then further reported on McRae's comments about needing this bill ASAP in case of a summer epidemic that might require limits to free speech. Thank you to all the people of this coast who have seen enough and are speaking up to tip us about the situation out on the salmon farms right now. Thank you Anissa Reed!!! You are awesome, Thank you Sabra Woodworth for always being there.

We turned this terrible thing back, it was all of us, not one person less, perhaps democracy is still alive. It is SO rare to get good news, but this is huge. We can get back to work now to turn off the viral spills. We are truly a movement now, a beautiful, inspired creative, peaceful, diverse enormous, movement not afraid to use our voices. We just want wild salmon to survive, and to protect them we have become like them we don't give up, thank you, thank you, thank you all of you!

Very important to keep the change.org petition http://www.change.org/petitions/cos...don-t-want-to-eat-salmon-flu-or-heart-viruses petition growing so the supermarkets will understand that we don't want diseased farm salmon to be sent all over the province on ice to supermarkets where the viruses could spread and people are eating them. I realize the word is that these viruses don't hurt people, but we do know feedlot influenza is dangerous and knowingly moving it all over the place is a bad idea.

The BC Liberals were set to push this bill through and we turned it back

Back to work

alex

 

[Whole in the Water]

While this is good news for the short term, I fear for the future. I think the real reason they pulled this bill is (1) it was taking up too much time in the house and (2) and most importantly, the the Liberals are very nervous about the upcoming election. There are trying very hard to miminze all bad press and issues that may be used against them in the election next May. Don't for a minute think that they had some brief moment where there consciences started bothering them about this bill - they are crafty politicians to the very end. I fear that they will re-introduce this bill after the election IF they win. You can bet that the fish farm companies will be contributing heavily to the Liberals election fund (almost like the crafty Liberals planned it that way) to ensure that Clark gets relected and the fish farms get their gag order legislation and much more for another 4 years.

So what can we do? DONT stop fighting against the lice farms, keep this an election issue to embarass the Liberals with. Vote for politcal parties that are against fish farms in the water!

 

[Seafever]

I've been banging off e-mails all the time now to elected mis-representatives.....

Carole James and Adrian Dix both acknowledged receipt.....the only two that did.


When I e-mailed Mr. Don Mcrae......Shawmail informed that it could not be sent due to a "block" by the receiver.

For Don no news is good news I guess.