Issues & Community Blog - Andrew Weaver: A Climate for Hope - Page 149

Media Statement – May 26, 2015

Green MLA calls for more time to consider Election Amendment Act

For Immediate Release

Victoria, B.C. – Andrew Weaver, M.L.A. for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and Deputy Leader of the B.C. Green Party, introduced an amendment today that called for an additional six months to consider the significant consequences of Bill 20 – the Election Amendment Act. If the bill is enacted, it would provide political parties with private information concerning who did or did not vote in a previous election or by-election. It also creates an election financing free-for-all in the pre-writ period.

With comprehensive individual voter turnout records, political parties can match voter records to their existing data on who their opponents’ supporters are. Any matches can be targeted with highly efficient voter suppression tactics to keep opponents’ supporters away from the polls. These tactics are already common in elections, but their effectiveness varies based, in part, on the quality of targeting data.

With the elimination of pre-writ spending limits, the government has opened the doors for more money to pour into B.C. elections. This further increases the issues of election financing in BC – a jurisdiction that already allows anyone in the world to donate to BC political parties, and allows union and corporate donations.

“This bill will have serious consequences for our democracy,” says Andrew Weaver. “There is no evidence that these changes will increase voter turnout and government knows it. British Columbian’s were never asked whether they wanted these changes – I think we need to give them time to have a say.”

Yesterday during committee stage debates, Minister of Justice, Suzanne Anton, acknowledged the lack of substantive evidence to support the government’s claim that this would improve voter turnout, stating: “This is not based on peer-reviewed literature. This is based on election organization experience.”

“As it stands, this Bill offers clear tools to suppress the vote but only offers the government’s word that it will increase it,” says Weaver. “The fact that this information is being provided after an election raises significant fears that it will be used for voter suppression. The Privacy Commissioner has been clear that the bill needs to be amended. We need more time to address her concerns and to consult the evidence.”

Andrew Weaver’s amendment was supported by Independent MLA Vicki Huntington and by the Official Opposition. It was defeated by the government on a vote.

Bill 20 requires Royal Assent before it is formally enact into law.

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Mat Wright

Press Secretary – Andrew Weaver, MLA

Cell: 250 216 3382

Mat.Wright@leg.bc.ca

This is the third in a seven week series examining the topic of child and youth mental health in B.C. As this is a complex and multifaceted topic, I will be narrowing my focus to a few popular beliefs and areas of concern that I have witnessed in my role as MLA. The purpose of this series is to debunk these beliefs, increase awareness of these concerns, end the stigma of mental health in our society and provide opportunities for you to impact what is happening in your community.

“The mental health system for children and youth in B.C. is actually not a system at all, but rather a patchwork of services that is inconsistent from region to region and community to community. It is confusing for youth, their families and even the professionals who serve them and, therefore, actually getting the required services is often near impossible.” – Still Waiting: First-Hand Experiences with Youth Mental Health Services in B.C.

Popular Belief Four: Mental Health Services are available and accessible

Reality: Research shows that young people aged 12 to 25 have the highest incidence of mental health challenges across the lifespan, however their access to services remains the poorest of all age groups. While almost a third of Canadians seeking mental health care report their needs unmet, the rate is even higher for children and youth.

Firsthand experiences of families and youth struggling with mental illness paint a picture of a broken and inconsistent system that provides delayed and heavily restricted access to services for a small subgroup of people with severe and complex disorders. Further compounding these issues is the artificial boundary that youth hit when they turn 18 and must transition into a new, and equally disjointed, adult system.

In order to address issues relating to the accessibility of youth mental health services in B.C., we must first understand how these services are delivered.

Who Provides Services?

A 2013 report by the Office of the Representative of Children and Youth examined how youth mental health services are provided throughout the province:

In BC, the Ministry of Children and Family Development (MCFD) and the Ministry of Health (MoH) have operational responsibility for the main streams of publicly funded mental health services for youth. With principal responsibility for community mental health services falling to MCFD and the MoH taking responsibility for primary care delivered by family doctors, specialized inpatient mental health care, and acute care in hospitals run by regional health authorities and the Provincial Health Services Authority (PHSA).

Geographically, these services are delivered by five regional health authorities, the PHSA and MCFD’s 13 service delivery areas. Each health authority is responsible for the development and delivery of its own community- and hospital-based mental health services and programs – this responsibility includes establishing policies, standards and protocols consistent with legislation, provincial policies and standards. In addition, each hospital within a region is responsible for its own operating policies.

Although policies and standards for the delivery of community mental health services are the responsibility of MCFD’s provincial office, each of MCFD’s regions determines how these policies and standards are implemented within the region and without accountability mechanisms back to the provincial office. As a result, MCFD delivers components of child and youth mental health services in a variety of ways across the province, and manages and operates them under a variety of structures.

Furthermore, the MOH identifies family doctors as the foundation of primary healthcare for all British Columbians. This means that individuals with a family doctor should be able to go to that doctor if they believe they have a mental health problem and should expect the doctor to assess the situation, manage the problem and, if necessary, refer them to specialized care. However, this is often not the case as GPs and Paediatricians themselves have reportedly identified that there’s a massive knowledge gap in this area and they do not have the expertise needed to properly address mental health issues.

Mending the System

Given the number of agencies involved in the delivery of youth mental health services, and the apparent lack of oversight and accountability, it is no wonder these shortfalls exist. A number of recommendations for mending these gaps and service access issues have been provided by both experts and those with first-hand experience navigating the system.

One of the recurring recommendations has been a call for a Minister of State for Youth Mental Health or a Minister of Youth Health. This person would act as a single point of accountability to address the needs of youth with mental health problems in B.C.

Other recommendations have included calls for increased government funding – according to a 2008 report mental illness constitutes more than 15% of the burden of disease in Canada yet receives less than 6% of healthcare dollars. As well as a comprehensive youth mental health plan – one which includes performance measures, targets and outcomes, and regular reporting to the public, decision-makers and service providers.

It is clear that the current system for managing and delivering child and youth mental health services in B.C. is unnecessarily convoluted and extremely disjointed. By redesigning our youth mental health system to incorporate age-appropriate, easy-to-access services that not only address the unique circumstances faced by transition-aged youth, but also aim to reduce the need for transition into adult services all together, we can provide our young people with the supports that they both need and deserve.

Weekly Action Item

Building on the last two action items, this week I am asking you to take this knowledge and share your new understanding of mental health with someone else – Inform Others. This can be a friend, a family member, a colleague, anyone you wish. You can share a story, share some resources or even just share this series. You can do this in person, on the phone, by email or over social media. Whatever the method and however large the scope, just get talking.

Media Statement – May 20, 2015
Green MLA calls Pacific NorthWest LNG-BC Government MOU “shocking and irresponsible”
For Immediate Release

Andrew Weaver, MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and Deputy Leader of the B.C. Green Party, says that the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding between the B.C. Government and Pacific NorthWest LNG is a truly shocking and irresponsible act.

“This is the act of a desperate government,” says Andrew Weaver. “For over two years I’ve been saying the same thing. Oversupply in the global natural gas markets means that the economics simply do not support the Liberal’s irresponsible LNG hyperbole. Rather than acknowledging the folly of their pre-election promises, they take the reckless and desperate approach of essentially giving away a resource while simultaneously proposing to hamstring future governments from looking out for the interests of British Columbians.”

The Memorandum of Understanding, signed between Pacific NorthWest LNG and the B.C. Government is a precursor to the controversial project development agreements that are designed to give LNG producers more certainty by making it costly for future governments to change royalty and tax rates.

The project development agreements are being used to get around the fact that by law a government cannot impose limitations on the powers and actions of future governments. They can, however, make it costly, both financially and politically, for a future government to withdraw from an existing agreement.

“By signing this agreement, the government is effectively putting the interests of one corporation ahead of British Columbians. This government has already rewritten environmental laws, rewritten the way royalties are assessed on industry, and advanced a very favourable tax regime for the industry.  Now they are hamstringing future governments. British Columbians are getting a raw deal from a government that is putting politics ahead of good economics. They should be outraged.”

Ironically, this latest event in B.C.’s ongoing LNG debacle comes at a time with the Asian LNG June spot price averaging around $7.12 per million BTU. A recent Macquarie Private Wealth analysis pinned the break even price for BC LNG at between $8.37 and $9.77 per million BTU.

Media contact

Mat Wright
Press Secretary – Andrew Weaver MLA
1 250 216 3382
mat.wright@leg.bc.ca

Media Statement – May 19, 2015
Allan’s Withdrawal from Pipeline Hearings gives Urgency for Province to do the Same
For Immediate Release

Andrew Weaver, MLA for Oak Bay-Gordon Head and Deputy Leader of the B.C. Green Party, says that Robyn Allan’s withdrawal from the National Energy Board hearings on the Trans Mountain pipeline gives new urgency to his call that the provincial government pull out of the federal hearings and hold its own made-in-BC review.

“Robyn Allan was one of the real leaders in the Trans Mountain pipeline hearings,” says Andrew Weaver. “When someone as credible and as thoughtful as Robyn Allan writes such a scathing review of this process, we’d be wise to listen.”

Allan’s withdrawal comes just one month after the English Bay oil spill that saw several Vancouver beaches closed due to human health risks from the toxic oil slick. A recent report commissioned by the City of Vancouver emphasised the dire consequences for marine life should a larger spill occur.

An economist and former CEO of ICBC, Allan has been one of the most active intervenors in the NEB hearings. When it was discovered that oral cross-examination had been excluded from the review, Allan led intervenors in what was ultimately an unsuccessful effort to get it reinstated. The lack of oral cross-examination has been described as one of the deepest flaws in the hearing process, seriously undermining intervenors’ ability to evaluate Trans Mountain’s proposal.

Weaver is currently the only B.C. MLA with intervenor status in the hearings. He has been calling on the B.C. government to pull out and hold their own review process for more than six months.

“British Columbians have rightfully lost confidence in the Trans Mountain hearings. Our coastline is too important to leave up to such a flawed process. It’s time for the province to withdraw.”

Last week, Weaver tabled a Private Member’s Bill designed to help British Columbians regain control over the approval of oil pipelines. If passed, the bill would provide an additional tool to residences to force the B.C. government to pull out of the Federal-Provincial Environmental Assessment Equivalency Agreement and hold its own provincial review process.

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Mat Wright
Press Secretary – Andrew Weaver MLA
Cell: 250 216 3382
Mat.wright@leg.bc.ca
Twitter: @MatVic

Parliament Buildings
Room 027C
Victoria BC V8V 1X4

If you look at the base of the B.C. marine ecosystem, you’ll find a funny little fish with a lot of names – eulachon, oulachon, oolichan, hooligan, ooligan, candlefish.  This species is critically important to the viability of numerous other species in our coastal waters, but has been quietly plummeting, with stocks down by ~98%. While economical, effective, and simple solutions to environmental crises may be few and far between, scientists in Oregon seem to have found an answer to the plight of the eulachon. The results are preliminary, but promising and word is spreading quickly through the fishing industry. To understand why this innovative research is so exciting and encouraging, we start near the bottom of the marine food chain with an examination of a fish of staggering importance.

Eulachon, a species of smelt that spawn in a limited number of rivers on the West Coast, spend most of their three-year life cycle in the marine environment where, much like herring, they play a pivotal role in sustaining the coastal food chain. As a forage fish, eulachon are a foundational species that feed hundreds of different types of animals. From salmon to marine birds, lingcod to killer whales, sea lions to eagles, nearly every marine animal in BC relies on forage fish as principal aspect of their diet.

Eulachon returning to spawn in the Columbia River. Photo by Sam Beebe, @sbeebe, CC-BY-2.0

Eulachon are vitally important to First Nations’ culture too; harvests are used for food, social, and ceremonial purposes. Eulachon’s high oil content has made them an incredibly valuable source of nutrients for coastal communities – it also means they’ll burn like a candle if lit on fire, which, logically enough, has earned them the name “candle fish.” For thousands of years, Coastal First Nations rendered eulachons into a grease, the health benefits and longevity of which made it a staple aspect of their diet. It was a coveted commodity traded between communities and carried in cedar boxes across well-trodden “grease trails” – the most famous of which stretches from Bella Coola to Quesnel.

Audry Duncan from the Haisla Nation setting up eulachon in a smoker. Photo by Sam Beebe, @sbeebe, CC-BY-2.0

Although there are still a few rivers, such as the Klinaklini and Kingcome that have strong runs, the eulachon population coast-wide in British Columbia is estimated to have declined by 98 per cent.

As a result, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has listed the Fraser River eulachon population as endangered, the Central Pacific Coast population as endangered, and the Nass/Skeena Rivers population as a species of special concern.

Despite their ecological and cultural importance, there are significant knowledge gaps about eulachon’s basic biology, migration routes, and historical spawning patterns. Unlike salmon, which are studied extensively, eulachon have little direct commercial market value (none currently as the fishery is now closed – though at one point there were active eulachon fisheries on the Fraser, Nass, Skeena, Klinaklini, and Kingcome Rivers). Intrinsically and indirectly, of course, they are invaluable and feed countless other market species. Given the constrained level of scientific attention given to eulachon, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) says it is difficult to conclusively pin-point the cause of their population crash. Instead, their decline has been linked to a variety of activities, such as the marine transportation of oil, natural gas, and toxic chemicals, estuary alteration, shoreline development, industrial runoff, agricultural pollution, trawl fisheries, and forestry activity.

According to recent egg and larval surveys in the Fraser River, DFO reports eulachon abundance as being at an all-time low. Considering the diversity between localized pressures, however, DFO notes that it is “unlikely that such threats would explain the nearly synchronous coast-wide decline of eulachon that has occurred.” 

Though certain threats, it is worth noting, have been more pervasive and persistent. Many believe that the shrimp trawl fishery, for example, is responsible for much of the eulachon collapse. 

Eulachon are prone to getting caught in mid-water and bottom nets trawling for other species, like the ones used to harvest shrimp. Virtually every eulachon that hits the deck of a fishing vessel will die, according to DFO’s report, and another 60-70% of the fish who escape through the net will be killed as “collateral damage”. 

Monitoring indicates that in‐season eulachon bycatch estimates have decreased over time, dropping from 22,406 pounds in 2001 to 8,818 pounds in 2005, and less than 2,205 pounds since 2006. It is hard not to speculate, however, that the reason fewer eulachon are being caught in shrimp nets is because there are fewer of them around to begin with, as indicated by this DFO graph from 2007.

 Fraser eulachon spawning stock biomass from 1995 to 2007 estimated by egg and larval survey at Fraser sampling locations.  

A population dynamics model conducted by DFO for the Fraser river eulachon run indicated that even a small removal or increased mortality rate (5t of the weakest cycle line) would significantly impair any potential for recovery. “Given the large uncertainty regarding magnitude of threats to the Eulachon,” the report continued, “minimal allowable harm should be permitted at this time, and be reduced below current levels as much as possible.” 

DFO also says that “climate change effects may impact both the marine and freshwater habitats.” The exceptionally large and warm expanse of water currently stretching across the North Pacific Ocean is, unfortunately, making this look quite likely.  “Right now it’s super warm all the way across the Pacific to Japan,” said Bill Peterson, an oceanographer with NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Newport, Ore. Not since records began has the region of the North Pacific Ocean been so warm for so long, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center reported. “The warm expanse has been characterized by sea surface temperatures as much as three degrees C (about 5.4 degrees F) higher than average, lasting for months, and appears on large- scale temperature maps as a red-orange mass of warm water many hundreds of miles across.” 

Image from Northwest Fisheries Science Center illustrating the expanse of warm water stretching across the Gulf of Alaska and Bering Sea.

The mistreatment of eulachon stocks in B.C. is an environmental and cultural tragedy, to say the least. Forage fish like herring and eulachon form a pillar that holds up the entire coastal ecosystem, yet for decades they have been hastily killed as bycatch and chucked overboard by the tonne, with little consideration for the consequences.

Yet all is not lost. Scientists in Oregon seem to have hit upon an effective and low-cost solution – they are lighting up the shrimp nets. Funded by a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, researchers attached 10 green Lindgren-Pitman lights to the fishing line of each net. After 42 tows, the researchers found that the illuminated net caught 90% fewer eulachon than the regular trawl gear, but roughly the same amount of shrimp.

Image from NOAA, Left: A pink shrimp haul without the use of LED lights shows Eulachon bycatch. Right: The results of LED lights hung on the trawl lines. LEDs have significantly reduced bycatch of threatened Eulachon as well as other fish by showing where the fish can escape the net.

Specific light placement is key, though, as some variations actually increased bycatch levels. “The new technique was shown to be effective when the lights were placed four feet apart across the center third of the footrope, an area near the bottom of the trawl that keeps the net open as it moves through the water. Researchers caution shrimpers to not place the lights around the rigid-grate bycatch reduction device, or BRD, as it actually decreased the effectiveness of the BRD for eulachon,” the NOAA report reads.

Results were so dramatic, the researchers immediately encouraged all shrimpers to start testing the technique. Within two months nearly every vessel across the border was using the illuminated net method, reporting very large reduction in bycatch of  small demersal fish, but eulachon in particular.

When contacted to ask if the B.C. shrimping industry was planning on adopting a similar bycatch reduction strategy, DFO said they are waiting to see the published results from the Oregon studies but they have had “initial discussions with the B.C. trawl industry and they have expressed an interest in testing this technique. Further discussion is expected.”

Eulachon are of vital importance to the marine ecosystem on the West Coast, and to First Nations. Urgent action needs to be taken to help these stocks recover. And a good start might be as simple as switching on some underwater lights.

Banner Image: Eulachon habitat at Kitamaat Village beach. Photo by Sam Beebe, @sbeebe, CC-BY-2.0