EDITOR,
With the story regarding the Cohen Commission into the Decline of Fraser Sockeye the degraded Fisheries Act and the cuts to DFO habitat protection staff last week and the petition sent to the Auditor General of Canada ("Fisheries groups petition AG on Cohen," Chief, Feb. 27), I had people asking me, "Why do the petition?"
The petition has been filed in our hopes that this will compel DFO to answer our petition questions in writing. The Auditor General reviews petitions in light of informing their choices around what issues they should do federal audits on. Justice Cohen's 75th and final recommendation explicitly draws the Auditor General into the mix. In that recommendation, Cohen suggests the Auditor General should report to the public on the extent to which government has implemented his recommendations, with a deadline of Sept. 30, 2015.
I had numerous people coming up to me expressing their concerns over lack of action on the Cohen Inquiry along with the recent changes to the Fisheries Act and cuts to DFO habitat protection staff. Many expressed frustration and asked why is the government not doing more and what they can do to help? Speak up and contact your local Member of Parliament. In our riding that is our MP, John Weston.
So many people put their hard work into many aspects of the Cohen Inquiry. Participants in our Sea to Sky Fisheries Roundtable took part in a short video that barely scrapes the surface of the Cohen Commission, but we hope it will at least give Canadians a better idea of the situation. We hope you can take the time to watch a short video produced by Watershed Watch. Here's the link http://youtu.be/BsW5B7gvJNg
Feel free to share this video within your social network contacts and friends, so we can continue to highlight wild salmon as an important issue.
Dave Brown
Whistler
