Happy New Year to all of You!
Well can you believe it? It's been a year today since the
Wild Salmon Alliance was born.
So, I thought it prudent to take a moment to thank each and every one of you who saw fit to jump on board this thing and support it.
First, a special thanks to
Karen Jones, our web-master, for her efforts to keep the website up and running throughout.
And again, I take my hat off to the late
Bob Jones for all his help, encouragement, and guidance, he so selflessly gave to help me organize this initiative.
I miss him dearly.
On a personal level, the last year has been a tough-go at times for me, especially those occasions when I upset WSA people and my fellow sport-fishermen (the very people whose interests' I've tried to stand up for) by allowing my big-mouth to run faster than my brain at times. To date this is my greatest regret, and I can only offer my sincere apology to any of you I've pushed away, and ask that we all now move forward and continue our battle against this
environmental-holocaust that is, among other things, killing Wild Pacific Salmon.
So, realistically, after one year what has the WSA accomplished? We still have fishfarms and even as you read this the industry is moving to expand and consolidate it's environmentally-lethal purchase on our coast-line before the spring election. We still have a Premier with his head-up-his-my friend, and he along with other political forces - who could in a heart-beat stop this madness - are in all likelihood still being paid a hefty sum by the industry to keep their collusive-heads just where they are.
One could argue the WSA hasn't amounted to a hill-of-beans so far.
Perhaps, but I (we) are not done yet.
I'm in the last stages of trying to address some legal issues prior to the launch of what I intend to be a massive pre-election public-awareness campaign directed solely at implicating our Premier and his complicity in the fish-farming fiasco. In my view, our best chance to bring some immediate and much needed respite to Wild Pacific Salmon is to get these salmon-farms out of our waterways, and the most practical way/route to achieving this is by going directly for the snake's-head; namely,
Gordon Campbell.
He has the power to stop it;
he has ignored the plea's and cries and countless letter's from the scientific community, sport/Native/commercial fishermen, First Nations' peoples', environmentalist's, and every-day Joe's like you and me.
So, now it's time
to play ball - it's time to get him
un-elected, and send a message - loud & clear - to all future would-be autocrats intent on messing with our fish (our childrens' fish) and Coastal marine ecology. Frankly, I'll gladly suffer through 4-years of potential NDP bungling to arrest Campbell and the vicious Liberal assault on Pacific Salmon and our precious rivers & streams.
When I have the last piece's in place for this campaign (legal council, trust-fund account for advertising expenditures) you'll be hearing from me again as I
ask for your help in raising funds to launch this campaign that will surely put
fish-farming and Gordon Campbell's face on
the same page in the public-eye, well before the spring election.
Standing for Wild Salmon,Terry Anderson (
silversaw@telus.net)
Wild Salmon AlliancePS. If there are any 'FishBC' members frequenting this forum, please feel free to copy/paste this post to that forum. One or more of the Mod's there have taken issue with me and banned me from posting there.
Thanks!