Sustainability

May 24, 2002

Sustainability

What does the expansion of fish farms have to do with sustainability? According to the Campbell government fish farm expansion is a good example of the application of their new sustainability principles. The David Suzuki Foundation, Canada's Auditor General and Rafe Mair do not agree with the government about the threat fish farms pose to wild salmon.

The word "forward" as in "move forward" or "moving forward" was used 30 times during Wednesday's 3 hour meeting. Many would suggest that fish farm expansion is a big move backward for the survival of BC's wild salmon.

Minister of Sustainable Resource Management Stan Hagen's news release says the principles will be contained in a discussion paper to be released next month as part of a consultation process. For those who just can't wait, the principles are contained in appendix 1 of the document Hagen presented to the staged cabinet meeting. Appendix 2 of that document illustrates the application of those principles to aquaculture. (pdf)

At the staged cabinet meeting Hagen received permission to consult with the public on principles that "will be used by resource ministries to assist with major policy and legislative initiatives involving land and water resources". It is less than honest to engage in public consultation when the outcome is already determined.

If anyone thinks lifting the fish farm moratorium has been indefinitely postponed, Hagen made the government's position clear when he said "Once we come to the next step in the aquaculture issue of removing the moratorium and announcing the new standards, I think you'll see some activity starting on the coast - not just on the central coast but the north coast as well."

It may have escaped the attention of most observers, but the Minister of State for Intergovernmental Relations, Greg Halsey-Brandt, acted as the only advocate for the environment. The two ministers who now divide what used to be called the Ministry of the Environment were put to shame by Halsey-Brandt.

Hon. G. Halsey-Brandt: "We just can't keep shrinking the natural environment. I mean, we talk about a balance, but it always seems to shrink, if you follow me, as opposed to the economy. Particularly around the Georgia basin, again, when you look at the expansion of the urban areas, air pollution, wastewater treatment and all those sorts of things…. I do think there has to be a balance, but I think there's got to be some clear benchmarks as well."

In case anyone took Halsey-Brandt's advocacy seriously, Premier Campbell made it clear that the purpose of the principles was to give weight to all ten rather than to allow interest groups to advocate for just one principle such as environmental protection. If anyone doesn't understand that the government really is a one man band, the Premier ended his remarks by asking if anyone had any questions on what he said.

Hon. G. Campbell: "I think that we should be moving forward as well. I do think there are a couple things that are critical about this, though. One is that I do believe that over the last little while we've had this sort of…. I think it was about the late eighties or early nineties when consensus started to mean unanimity. None of these decisions are easy decisions to make. Interest-based politics and consultation came to who could state their interests in the most direct way and sort of fight the longest for their interest, and to heck with all the other principles."

"It seems to me that as government enters into sustainability principles, it's important that others that are at the table also embrace the same set of principles, so they've got the same checklist of ten principles that they're striving to achieve."

"The second thing that I think is important is that as they embrace all those, it is critical, as we go through the consultation process, that we are explicit about what is meant by these principles. What we say and what someone hears may be different. What one person reads on a paper…. We've found that in the activities that we're undertaking with the BCMA. When we write "2005," they don't read "2005,"so I do think it's important for us to be clear and explicit about what we actually mean by things."

"When we say "integration," it's a nice word. Who could argue with integration? Except the question is: who can define it also? That's why everyone can agree to it so easily. Or transparency - what do we really mean by that? There's always going to be someone who will say… I've had meetings with 300 people at them, and someone will say, "We haven't had enough people at the meeting" - right? I do think there are those issues that we have to be pretty clear on. Otherwise, this will become - as opposed to an enabler, which is, I think, what we're trying to make it at the time, where we build one another's literacy about these issues - basically a stumbling block."

"I hope that as we go through that process, those two things are underlined. You start to deal with the issue that Geoff and John and Greg raised by being explicit about what we mean by "is going on there." There are a lot of big words we use. I think it's important we know what they mean in terms of straightforward sentences for the public as well."

"Any other questions on that?"

One question might be why is the government wasting money on a consultation process when the Premier will dictate which way is forward?