The recent story in the Mirror regarding the removal of the fish farms from Discovery Passage stated that the farm workers were surprised by the announcement.
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I have lived in this area for over 20 years and I have seen coverage of this issue just about the entire time. This has been ongoing for so long that for the fish farmers to say they knew nothing about it is insulting. There have been so many words written, studies conducted, marches, court cases and on and on that anyone not knowing about these issues is either a newcomer or pretending. I remember a march of about 5,000 people at the Parliament building in Victoria that occurred around 10 years ago and was well publicized in the Mirror as well as all the media outlets. There was rarely an issue of the paper where there weren’t letters and articles about the two sides of the fish farming industry.
I’m sure the people who work on the fish farms are disappointed to be losing those jobs but to say they didn’t know it was coming and it is sudden is ridiculous. If the industry really cared about their employees they would have been ready for this because the CEOs and other executives likely knew it was coming. Perhaps that is who the farm workers should be upset with.
We don’t always get what we want, but this time we might just be getting what is best for our local environment instead of for the mostly foreign fish farm corporations.
Things change and jobs change with the times. There have been many polluting industries that have had to change and even cease and somehow we humans manage to find new jobs and carry on.
It is time for open net fish farming in Discovery Passage to end.
Jan Brettnacher
Quadra Island
