VICTORIA — The New Democrats are now accusing their critics of “fearmongering” over Agriculture Minister Lana Popham’s veiled threat to cancel the tenures of one of B.C.’s big fish farming operators.
“You know what is not good for business?” challenged Popham Thursday in responding to a question from the B.C. Liberals. “The fearmongering from that side of the chamber.”
The question about the impact on business was provoked by Popham’s letter last week to Marine Harvest Canada, operator of 11 fish farms on the West Coast.
The minister suggested the company postpone restocking one of its salmon farming operations in an area that is a target of First Nations’ protests over raising fish in open net pens.
She further advised the company of its obligations to respect the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, now that the New Democrats have endorsed UNDRIP.
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Lastly, Popham put the company on notice that the province reserves the right to take back the company’s tenures when they expire next June.
Thus, the fear that the New Democrats would cancel fish farming tenures was grounded in a reading of a letter signed, sealed and delivered on behalf of the agriculture minister herself.
Despite the chilling tone, Popham insisted the letter was nothing like a warm-up for an eviction notice.
“These tenures aren’t being cancelled,” she assured the legislature. “They are coming up on a review of a renewal process that’s part of normal business practice.”
She also maintained the main motivation for the letter was a concern never mentioned in the text, that New Democrats “will do everything that we can to protect the health of wild salmon.”
Even allowing for that concern, the minister’s written approach to the company was anything but normal or routine.
A low-key letter asking Marine Harvest to put off restocking the fish farm for a specified period would have sufficed. No links to more contentious public policy issues. No threats. The deputy minister could have drafted and signed the letter, isolating it from the political realm.
Instead she advised the company to live up to its obligations under her reading of the 46 principles of UNDRIP.
Never mind that the premier himself said this week that the issue with the fish farm predated the NDP adoption of the UN declaration by decades.
Popham then brought up the matter of the tenures, pretty much hinting the company’s ability to go on operating in these waters was tied to its willingness to toe the line.
The tenures do not fall within the bailiwick of Popham’s ministry of agriculture, a point she acknowledged only in passing. The review and renewal is up to the ministry of forest, lands and natural resource operations.
Moreover the matter is supposed to be handled by a statutory-decision maker, meaning a professional public servant, guided by existing law, regulations and policies. The judgment cannot be capricious. Politics is not supposed to enter into it.
And for all the NDP’s new-found enthusiasm for the United Nations’ declaration, it is a political commitment, not incorporated in existing provincial statutes and regulations.
But in the event the New Democrats do cancel the fish farm tenures, Popham’s letter could open up the government to legal action. For the company could go to court and argue that it was evicted for political reasons, not any failure to respect provincial laws and regulations.
Against that backdrop, Premier John Horgan weighed in on the Popham letter during question period Thursday in his capacity of — as one of the B.C. Liberals put it — minister of defence.
He began by quoting from a two-year-old press release where the then-B. C. Liberal government announced it would review aquaculture tenures to ensure they were properly sited and compatible with the wild salmon fishery.
“What’s good for the goose should be good for the gander,” continued the premier. Fair game to remind the Liberals of their record in government. Lord knows, the Libs made enough references to the NDP record during “the dismal decade of the nineties.”
But NDP researchers were unable to arm Horgan with a quote where the Liberals had threatened to cancel tenures over failure to live up to a political declaration like UNDRIP.
Nor was there any overlooking how the Marine Harvest threat has raised fears about the fate of other provincially awarded tenures for the use of land and resources.
There are some 60,000 of those. They range from big-ticket natural resource tenures for mining, forestry and natural gas, to small fry recreational uses, according to a 2010 report from the ministry of forests, lands and natural resource operations.
Given the aggressive tone of the Popham letter, holders of some of those tenures might be wondering how long before they get a pre-eviction notice from the NDP.
Not to worry, insisted the premier, as he joined Popham in going on the attack against the B.C. Liberals.
“My advice to those on the other side: get comfortable, enjoy your time in opposition, but don’t fearmonger. No licences are being revoked. No tenures are being lifted.”
Not yet anyway. But the fear is out there.
And it may take more than bluster on the floor of the legislature to dispel suspicions that Popham’s only sin, in the eyes of the premier, was to put the threat in writing.
