Where do you people get off on providing such irresponsible reporting? I’m referring to Renee Andor’s “Salmon farmers confident Cohen will not link wild fish decline to farmed fish.”
FYI, I spent several rather intense days recently at the Cohen Commission in Vancouver. With objectivity and open mind I witnessed testimonies and evidence that was quite astonishing, and observed rather suspicious behaviour from the salmon farm industry representatives.
What I saw was the provincial, federal and salmon farmers association lawyers with their statements and questioning were obviously coming from a position of protecting themselves.
It all made me wonder why would government be concerned about any of this … they supposedly have nothing to hide, they should have a neutral position?
As well it seemed odd that if the salmon farming industry is truly doing nothing wrong then why would they be putting up such significant opposition and struggle?
On several occasions when the salmon farming representatives were on the stand being questioned by the environmental movement lawyer there was much tension, suspicious conduct with faltering voices and evasive replies.
The provincial, federal and salmon farming association lawyers on several occasions attempted to discredit the environmental movement representatives’ testimony and work, but I feel failed to do so, in fact backfired to a point I felt awkward and embarrassed for them.
Despite strong efforts from the provincial, federal and salmon farming association lawyers to hinder and quash some of the testimony I feel its fair to say that myself and the packed gallery of public on lookers took away from it that the salmon farming industry is destroying our wild fish stocks with diseases and the government has been colluding with salmon farming industry to hide this.
Myself and, I feel, many others could not help but realize this because of the compelling evidence presented and the salmon farming industry and government’s dubious behaviour including frequent contradiction and retraction of statements.
This all helped to validate the existence of a government cover up and deceit on numerous fronts.
The entire thing was rather surreal causing me to stop and ask myself “what am I witnessing here?” From the often quite damning evidence and numerous gasps and comments from the gallery I can’t see that Justice Cohen could not have developed a similar take on it.
So this all supports the opposition movement’s position all along that the salmon farm industry is deceitful and can not be trusted.
In fact deceit, denial and confusion is all the salmon farming industry can offer because if they spoke the truth it would sound like what the anti-salmon farming movement has been saying all along. Surely this is not news to you?
So what would you expect Mary Ellen Walling to say, and why would you so irresponsibly publish her version along with such a headline? I was there and I did not hear what Walling is saying.
Walling’s version is a distorted, cherry picked version to support what she wants heard. It’s people such as yourselves that only serve to propagate the facade the salmon farming industry does nothing wrong, and consider yourself part of the problem and part of the reason wild salmon are in decline.
Congratulations.
Paul Dean
Vancouver
