I have been asked to speak today as newsmaker of the week but in fact I am only the messenger. The real news of the week is the deep frustration and anger in British Columbia over the federal government's neglect of our priorities and the willingness of many British Columbian to renegotiate our role in the Canadian Confederation in the context of the current national unity debate.
This frustration was revealed when I expressed my own distress over the treatment of BC fishermen and shoreworkers by Liberal West Coast fishing policies and the failure of the feds to protect our salmon stocks from predatory attacks by the Alaskan "salmon stealers," failures that are crippling our coastal communities and the people who live in them.
I am not going to discuss the almost mystical role the salmon plays in our coastal culture. It is deeply rooted in aboriginal tradition and in the socio-economy of many BC communities, aboriginal and non-aboriginal. The right to harvest, use and trade our fish is part of the coastal ethic, part of our sense of identity.
Instead, I wish to make two points. First, many BC priorities are being ignored by Canada. British Columbians, in my experience, love Canada, but too often when we need Canada it is not there for us.
Second, many BC issues are viewed by the Central Canadian media through the prism of Quebec's concerns. It is as if we had no regional identity, no national vision beyond Quebec. We are not viewed as Canadians in our own right. It is this myopic attitude that is creating deep divisions in our country.
The BC fishery is a case in point. The federal government insists on federal jurisdiction over a resource that swims by 25,000 km of British Columbia coastline, sustaining the local communities. Federal policies have devastated the fishery; half the fleet has been displaced, mostly in the small communities, without mitigating measures. Conservation is not the issue; the same volume of fish are being caught with …
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