When he arrived in Port Hardy to stump for support in his bid for B.C.’s Conservative leadership, Dan Brooks decried the sorry state of voter turnout in the province.
“People would rather join a protest,” he said. “It’s the only way they feel their voice is being heard by government.”
Across the political spectrum, Alexandra Morton has arrived at a similar conclusion. After butting heads with the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans for years over open net-pen fish farms along wild salmon migration routes in the Broughton Archipelago, she has had enough.
Morton insists she has never called for abolition of the farms. Rather, that they and their associated diseases be moved out of the corridors carrying juvenile wild salmon from their spawning streams to the ocean.
Her voice has not been heard by government, so Morton is turning to The People.
This is not a media-ready march with banners or a noisy occupation of the halls of power. Rather, she is asking the public to join her with its most potent weapon: its purse.
Norwegian aquaculture corporations are not farming salmon in B.C. because they want to provide nutritious food or good jobs to the public. They want money. They need money to stay in operation.
Individually, people cannot outspend corporations at campaign donation time, so many naturally assume politicians are working for the corporations.
But dig deep enough into the books, and you’ll find it’s our money the corporations are showering on the pols. And we can cut out that middleman.
It’s not quick, it’s not sexy, and it doesn’t bring out the TV camera crews. And it requires lots and lots of people. But when it works it’s bigger than a protest. It’s change.
