The NDP's Salmon Sell Out - Money Talks, Adrian Dix Doesn't!
by Don Staniford - Green Around the World
Voters in the upcoming election in British Columbia are beginning to see through the NDP's embarrassingly thin policy on salmon (click online here - and then search for "salmon" and there's only two mentions in 70 pages of NDP policy promises!).
NDP leader Adrian Dix - the man in the skimpy orange underpants - is the Emperor with no clothes and no voice for wild salmon.
Watch Adrian Dix's lips as he criss-crosses BC on the campaign trail - but don't hold your breath for him to issue a public statement on salmon anytime soon. The BC salmon farming industry has bought the NDP's platform on salmon farming - hence Dix's deafening silence on salmon.
The NDP's current policy on salmon farming is the tail wagging the dog.
A look at all the donors to the NDP reveals over $10,000 in donations from the BC Salmon Farmers Association and the salmon farming giant Grieg Seafood - with five donations from the BCSFA since 2006 including $6,700 in 2012 alone.
Norwegian-owned Grieg Seafood donated a further $1,125 during 2012.
Grieg Seafood, along with another Norwegian-owned salmon farming corporation Cermaq (Mainstream), spread the deadly disease Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis around BC last year precipitating "losses amounting to millions of dollars".
Read more via Alexandra Morton's blog "On to the next IHN positive site owned by Norwegian company Grieg"
BCSFA member Mainstream Canada (a subsidiary of Cermaq) certainly know how to play politics. Following the death of NDP leader Jack Layton they cried crocodile tears via this press release:
Whilst NDP federal leader Jack Layton came out strongly in support of wild salmon and referred to fish farms as a "grave concern" before the 2011 election, BC NDP leader Adrian Dix refuses to nix disease-ridden salmon feedlots.
"I think the long-term decline that we’ve seen, the growth of fish farming that we’ve seen, is something that’s of very, very grave concern," said Layton in an interview with The Straight. "So this is a high priority for us."
Read more via "Message to the NDP - Cut the Crap on Salmon Farming"
How low can the BC NDP now go when it comes to their policy on salmon? Whilst Jack led from the front and spoke his mind, Adrian barks orders from the backroom to NDP candidates to stay silent whilst out on the campaign trail.
A closer look at the NDP's backroom team bossing strategy rings the alarm bells. The brains behind the NDP's election campaign is Brad Lavigne - a Vice President of the PR company of choice for polluting corporations, Hill & Knowlton.
Hill & Knowlton acted as a shameless shill for the salmon farming industry when advising the BC Salmon Farmers Association in 2003. Raincoast Conservation Society wrote in a press release:
Read more via "Farmageddon & the Spin Doctors", "Media campaign attempts to get farmed salmon off the hook" and "Net-cage farmed salmon will never gain public acceptance"
A decade later, that Hill & Knowlton's Vice President is pulling the strings on the NDP's salmon policy speaks volumes (even if NDP leader Adrian Dix doesn't).
Read more via "Is the NDP the Liberal Party in disguise? Go Green for Wild Salmon!"
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