Bill C-37 BC Animal Health Act

     The BC Christy Clark/Campbell unelected Government has been very busy drafting legislation.

     There are some twenty Bills stacked in the Legislature to be shoved down our throats before the end of the Spring Session.  The Liberals and their wealthy backers, Gwyn Morgan (of SNC Lavelin and Encana fame), Patrick Kinsella (BC Rail/CN lobbyist and now lobbying for Liquor Distribution privatisation), Phil Hochstein (Independant Business Contracters Assn., big fan of slavery) are all wetting their pants with the gutting of our beautiful province.

     But today I want to talk about one particular Bill that has me worried.  Bill C-37, the Animal Health Act, which prohibits people from disclosing an outbreak of disease on a farm.

     While I sympathize with farmers about how sensitive information can be in a very tough business, I have to suspect that this legislation is aimed at silencing critics of certain farming practices.  Such as open pen fish farms, infesting our coast (literally) and endangering our wild fish species.

     Let me be perfectly clear.  Without the wild food chain in our ocean, the entire food web will collapse.  Orcas, bears, raincoast wolves, bald eagles, blue herons.  The rainforest will be missing it’s number one fertiliser, fish.  When the salmon spawn, they leave their stinky carcasses to feed the forest floor.  Bonemeal, fishmeal, bloodmeal, all of those elements nourish the heart of BC, it’s forests.

     The DFO and BC Liberal Government are working hard to make wild salmon extinct.  Why?  Because wild salmon are inconvenient to these people and the people that lobby them and donate to their election campaigns.  Norweigan Fish Farms.  Oil Companies.  Pipeline builders.  Those fish populations are in the way and the people of BC seem emotionally attached to them.  I really believe that these people think if they destroy our environment, we will be desperate enough to accept unacceptable practices.  Such as shipping bitumen through our province and off our coastline.

     This legislation is aimed at silencing experts.  Alexandra Morton, in particular.  This week alone, she was justified in her arguement against the fish farms when an operation off Tofino had too cull 560,000 atlantic salmon (shipping them up the Somass River to a composting facility in Port Alberni, dripping blood and shedding virus all the way).  Two days later and two more farms are quarantined on the west coast, with reports of disease in Washington State.

     There is another disturbing aspect to this story.  Radiation poisoning.  A friend of mine had a huge spike in mortality with their lambs this year.  Deformities and stillbirth.  When they submitted a mortality report to the vet, the response was vague, suggesting genetics was the problem (in a proven herd).  Will it be illegal for me to disclose this information to you next month?  Who is monitering our coast for radiation from the ongoing emergency at Fukushima?

Power to do anything reasonably necessary

40  If the circumstances described in section 39 [when general orders may be made] apply, an inspector may order a person to do anything that the inspector reasonably believes is necessary for one or more of the following purposes:

(a) to determine the presence of a notifiable or reportable disease;

(b) to identify, prevent, control or eradicate a notifiable or reportable disease;

(c) to bring the person into compliance with the Act or a regulation made under it, or a term or condition of that person’s licence or permit.

So, who is deemed an inspector and who makes the regulations?  This smacks of Luietenant Governor in Council to me, aka Cabinet.  Bypassing the legislative process, as flawed as that has become.

But that’s not all, oh no…

 

General orders

41  Without limiting section 40 [power to do anything reasonably necessary], an inspector may order a person to do one or more of the following:

(a) keep an animal, an animal product or byproduct, or a thing in a specified place;

(b) prevent an animal, an animal product or byproduct, or a thing from

(i) being transported to or from a place,

(ii) being unloaded from a vehicle, or

(iii) entering a specified place;

(c) prevent persons or animals from being exposed to an animal, an animal product or byproduct, or a thing;

What thing?  How the fuck do you write laws about unspecified things?  Seriously, I never got past trade school but even I would not submit a Bill about unspecified things!  How the fuck does the Minister propose to enact such a Bill?

 

Sixth Estate trumped me on this story, high recommended…