Prime Minister Stephen Harper visited a key battleground seat on northern Vancouver Island Friday to promise more money for restoring and enhancing salmon habitat.
Speaking at a news conference in Campbell River, Harper said a re-elected Conservative government would extend its partnership with the Pacific Salmon Foundation by investing $15 million to protect important estuaries. He also pledged to work with the B.C. government, First Nations and other partners to complete the National Marine Conservation Area Reserve in the Southern Strait of Georgia.
Rachel Blaney, the NDP candidate in the new riding of North Island-Powell River, said Harper’s announcement flies in the face of his environmental record while in office.
“The reality is in the last 10 years Stephen Harper has dismantled a lot of laws protecting air, land and especially our water,” she said. “So now he wants us to believe that he cares about salmon?”
Blaney said the more likely explanation for Harper’s visit and announcement is that the Conservatives are worried about losing seats on the Island. “People are coming together,” she said. “They’re ready for a change.”
Conservative John Duncan, who lost Vancouver Island North to the NDP in 2006, won the seat by only a few thousand votes in 2008 and 2011. Since then, electoral redistribution has split the seat into North Island-Powell River and Courtenay-Alberni, where Duncan is seeking re-election this time.
Brian Riddell, president of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, said Harper’s promise of more money would allow the foundation to expand its estuary restoration efforts.
“Estuaries, where freshwater and saltwater meet, are especially important habitat for Pacific salmon,” he said in a statement. “Unfortunately, estuarine wetlands and small bays along their shores have been filled, cleared, diked, and drained to meet development needs over the years.”
Riddell stressed that the foundation is independent, science-based and non-partisan, so it welcomes “new and constructive investment commitments in Pacific salmon habitat and conservation from any political party.”
Bob Peart, executive director of the Sierra Club of B.C., said the National Marine Conservation Area Reserve in the southern Strait of Georgia has been years in the making. “So if today’s announcement provides some new energy, we’d certainly be pleased about that,” he said.
He added, however, that the Sierra Club would advise any government that it needs to strengthen the area’s management by expanding the no-take zones for fisheries.
“NMCA, like any national protected area, whether it’s a marine or a terrestrial park, needs to have a strong environment and the NMCA, as it’s framed right now, doesn’t,” Peart said.
Harper’s news conference raised the ire of Scouts Canada because some Scouts in uniform were standing beside the prime minister during the event. A spokesman for Scouts Canada said it is against the organization’s policy to have anyone in a Scouts uniform involved in political activities.
John Petitti said the organization is trying to ascertain what happened, because the Scouts were not sanctioned to be at the event. Petitti said the non-partisan policy is regularly reinforced with Scouts leaders across the country.
A spokesman for the Conservative campaign said the party welcomed the participation of anyone who was at the event.
— files from Canadian Press
