Category: environmental

The Quinsam’s climate cost

How we get here

As a new Gabriola resident, i’m noticing things about my new home — like the marked weather difference between here and Tofino, my previous digs.

Another striking first impression for the visitor or new arrival is the Quinsam, and its central place in island life, and how dealing with the ferry — the oddball departure times; the godsend Ferry Cam; the line-up, with its stringent etiquette and elaborate positioning strategies; the pastimes whiling away the long waits — are all part of island life and lore.

Pretty much everything and everyone on the island come across on that ferry — every coffee cup and bean, every bag of chips, every litre of propane, band-aid and e-bike, along with every customer in every shop. The Quinsam is absolutely intrinsic to island life and economy. Continue reading “The Quinsam’s climate cost”

Assault on Clayoquot salmon continues

Another approval, this one bravely issued the Wednesday before the Thanksgiving long weekend, brings closer the expansion of open net-cage salmon farming in Clayoquot Sound. Read the one-page “Reasons for Decision” — what a non-document! There’s so much wrong with this that i won’t go into it here (refer to Don Staniford’s blog and Alex Morton’s blog to get an earful of how insidious this corporate/government conspiracy really is). Continue reading “Assault on Clayoquot salmon continues”

An open letter back atcha, Minister

It’s nearly 1 a.m. but i could not resist a short diatribe in response to Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver‘s open letter recently published in the Globe & Mail. Give it a read; it’s short, but it’s a remarkable document both in the lines and between them. Ridiculous, unsubstantiated accusations, a transparent wish for concerned citizenry to just get out of the way and let the oil-soaked Conservatives do what they want to do … it boggles the mind. And this is one of our leaders? Heaven help us.

Joe’s email, in case you want to write, is:  joe.oliver@parl.gc.ca. For added spice, i cc’d the message below to my MP James Lunney (Lunney.J@parl.gc.ca) — a medical man, and thus one who clearly must care more about the future of humanity at large than he does about oil companies’ bottom lines. Right?

My rant:

Wow, Minister Oliver. Your recent “open letter” to the people of Canada was, hands down, the most insulting thing i’ve ever read from an elected MP. Your sweeping characterization of me as a helpless dupe being manipulated by shadowy “foreign funders” was truly breathtaking. And here i thought i was a concerned citizen, trying to keep up with many issues, and making my best judgement on each of them, with one eye on legitimate science and another on the sustainable future world i would like to live in and leave for the children around me.

If you want to see someone being manipulated by foreign funders, i daresay you need only look in the mirror each morning when you shave, before heading out to Parliament Hill for another day of mortaging — nay, selling out wholesale — our children’s future to a world laid waste by climate change and the bottomless greed of Big Oil and its blinkered, shameless patsies. Of which it is now abundantly clear that you, sir, are one, in company with your hallowed leader.

In over 20 years, i’ve never written an insulting letter to an MP. But now you, Minister Oliver, have taken the cake. With all due respect — and in my opinion, markedly less is due this week than last — you ought to be stepping down. Your attitude toward public process is clearly warped beyond the bounds of participatory democracy.

Dr. Lunney, you are my MP, and as a constituent i strongly urge you to call for Minister Oliver’s immediate resignation.

Your very truly,
greg blanchette

ISA, fish farms, inaction, etc.

I’m getting in a letter-writing mood again. Here’s today’s missive, sent to the federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans via the Wilderness Committee‘s convenient letter-writing tool (in case you want to write one yourself).

It is time, and well past time, for our provincial and federal government, and especially the DFO, to take some meaningful action on protecting wild salmon from the effects of salmon farms. The tactic of waiting for 100% incontestable scientific proof before even beginning to act is no longer supportable, and hasn’t been for years. Continue reading “ISA, fish farms, inaction, etc.”