March 27, 2012
The Honourable Peter Kent, P.C., M.P.
The Honourable Keith Ashfield P.C. M.P.
Sirs,
We of the Women’s Party are not satisfied with our correspondence with you concerning Genetically Modified Salmon.
In the first place, we are of the opinion that this matter rests squarely with the Ministry of Fisheries and Oceans as well as with the Ministry of the Environment. Of course this also eventually concerns the Ministry of Health but as Ms Aglukkagq seems to have passed the buck completely in her reply to the Women’s Party on the matter, we will simply concentrate on the two federal government departments that are most directly and immediately affected by the keeping of GMO fish in West Vancouver and the question of how they got there, and why the public was not notified of their arrival or their presence.
As mentioned, we strongly feel that the DFO is instrumental in everything that goes on in the fisheries of British Columbia. All fish farms are now directly under the attention and control of the DFO (since 2009). And of course, the mutant fish that are being prepared to be released into the fish farms of BC should everything go well with the approval process in the United States, comes under the care and control of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. To pretend otherwise would be to insult our intelligence so please don’t do that.
The silence of the DFO on the preparation of mutant fish in West Vancouver to be released into BC fish farms as soon as the go-ahead arrives from the US has a link, in our opinion, to other questionable practices by the DFO in BC. Aside from the mutant fish being prepared for Canadian market when the time comes, there are other radical DFO experiments going on with fish in fish farms and also in BC rivers and streams that is everybody’s business who eats fish.
We know according to Dr. E.M. Donaldson, DFO (and others) that fish on BC fish farms have been literally sex changed, primarily by treatment with estrogen, due to the fish farms demand for all female fish in the pens in order to cut their losses . These losses occur by the phenomenon of a large percentage of males “jacking” early and dying before harvest. We also know according to Dr. E.M. Donaldson, DFO (and others) that fish are being released into the rivers and even open waters of BC that have been sterilized and pumped full of estrogen. As these fish then do not go into the reproduction cycle they grow unnaturally bloated and fat for the tourists as well as for market.
We also believe that this experimenting around with hormones to get fat, steril fish and then allowing them on the market as well as in BC open waters poses a danger not only to wild salmon (as some still retain the capacity to breed) but to humans. Hormones are the most potent growth and sex differentiation substances in nature and to throw the female hormone around so recklessly is endangering humans as well as wild and domestic animals that consume fish. As the use of these hormones to change the sex of fish is a crime, we believe, and against nature, as they also makes the fish unwell. We suspect that the use of sex hormones to change the sex of fish and the process of sterilization may also very well contribute to the diseases that are plaguing both fish farm and wild fish such as the ISA virus that is being documented by Biologist Alexandra Morton and her colleagues.
The Women’s Party also disputes the concept put forth by Mr.Keith Ashfield, DFO, that the government only holds a patent on the genetic material that goes into the making of the DMO fish, so that this does not constitute a patent on the actual fish, and therefore does not contravene the Canadian Environmental Protection Act. This is similar to the way Mr. Peter Kent, Minister of the Environment ,can say that Canada has an Endangered Species Act, but the endangered species themselves are on the street, as it were, as there is no protection for their habitat, that is, no place to live. We deplore this kind of rationalization and claim that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Ministry of the Environment are indeed in contravention of the Environmental Protection Act.
We have also asked for a risk assessment on the mutant GMO fish being raised in West Vancouver (Jan. 19, 2012) We hope to hear from both of your departments in full in the near future. Thank you for your attention.
Betty Krawczyk (Writing for the Women’s Party)
betty.krawczyk@gmail.com
cc The Honourable Christian Paradis, PC, MP
The Honourable Leona Aglukkasq PC, MP
The Honourable John Weston, MP
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