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Better yet where was he when we needed him in 2015 N'esy Pas?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cFOKT6TlSE
Fundy Royal, New Brunswick Debate – Federal Elections 2015 - The Local Campaign, Rogers TV
How Nova Scotia’s premier-designate Tim Houston made sure no one could mistake him for Erin O’Toole
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The swing in party fortunes that swept the Progressive Conservatives to a convincing majority in Nova Scotia’s provincial election may be less a sign of hope for federal Conservative leader Erin O’Toole — and more a cautionary tale for Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau.
That’s the conclusion of at least one political expert, who points out that new Nova Scotia premier-designate Tim Houston in fact made a point during his campaign of distancing himself from his federal cousins — and of labelling himself a “red Tory.”
As of Wednesday morning, Houston’s PC party appears to have taken 31 of the province’s 55 seats, with results still being tabulated. That overturns two successive terms of a provincial Liberal government, which went into the election hoping to turn its minority into a majority.
O’Toole, who is just days into his own election campaign on the federal stage, was quick to congratulate Houston on “a great night” in Nova Scotia.
But though the political map of Nova Scotia has turned largely blue — including several ridings that have been traditionally red — there’s no reason to believe that will translate to the federal level, said Lori Turnbull, associate professor of political science at Dalhousie University in Halifax.
Houston took great pains through the campaign to paint himself as a red Tory, and to distance himself from the federal Conservatives and their leader, repeatedly emphasizing the “progressive” in Progressive Conservative.
“My focus is Nova Scotians, and I’ve always been focused on Nova Scotia,” Houston told the Star in an interview before election day. “And so I’m not beholden to any federal leader.
“We’re the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative party. The federal party is called the Conservative Party of Canada. It’s not just different words, they’re different parties. I, personally, am not a member of the federal party.”
Provincial Politics/https://www.thestar.com/content/dam/thestar/politics/provincial/2021/08/18/two-tory-mpps-facing-expulsion-from-caucus-for-refusing-to-get-vaccinated/qp.jpg)
Two Ontario MPPs face expulsion from Progressive Conservative caucus for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations
Two Ontario MPPs face expulsion from Progressive Conservative caucus for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations
Turnbull said that difference was recognized by voters.
“A vote for Houston is not the same as a vote for Erin O’Toole,” said Turnbull. “A person could absolutely support Houston and want nothing to do with Erin O’Toole. Houston seems to want nothing to do with Erin O’Toole.
“So, I don’t think this is a sign that conservative things are coming on the federal level to Nova Scotia.”
The provincial election came down more to the way the candidates ran their campaigns than to their party brands, Turnbull said.
The question that will be dissected in the following days is whether Houston won the election, whether Liberal leader Iain Rankin lost the election, or whether the result was some combination of the two.
“Houston was really clear on health care and (NDP Leader Gary) Burrill was really clear on affordable housing and rent control, and Rankin didn’t have a message like that, that he really came down on,” Turnbull said.
“It’s not that he didn’t have a campaign. It’s just that there wasn’t that single issue that he really put his identity in or put his focus on.”
“(Houston) offered an alternative to the government that was plausible and that made sense to people. He’s not a conservative like O’Toole. He’s a red Tory. And he campaigned on that.”
Ultimately, it seems that the Tories focus on health care, a longtime thorn in the side for most Nova Scotians, held the most resonance for voters.
If there is food for thought for Justin Trudeau in the Nova Scotia election, it may be the fact that, with country potentially in the latter stages of a pandemic, steering voters through the COVID crisis no longer guarantees an incumbent victory.
In Nova Scotia, the Liberals learned that in painful fashion as Rankin ran a low-key campaign, while his opponents each hammered on key non-COVID-19 issues. In a federal election, said Turnbull, Trudeau would be wise to take notes.
The coming federal election is a double-edged sword for Trudeau.
On the one hand, voters tend to be loath to change leaders during a crisis. In Nova Scotia, with case counts low and vaccination rates high, it appears voters switched from crisis mode to thinking about particular issues, to Houston’s benefit and Rankin’s detriment.
For Trudeau, much will come down to whether voters perceive the pandemic to be in its waning stages — in which case, they may broaden their outlook to other issues — or whether, with Delta variant case numbers rising in places, they believe the pandemic to be ongoing — in which case they are likely to dance with the one what brung them.
But if the latter is the case, and voters are nervous about rising case numbers, the inevitable attack from opposing parties will be on the advisability of running a campaign during a COVID crisis.
“Erin O’Toole will go at that messaging really heavy,” said Turnbull. “If COVID numbers keep going up, then he’ll be (saying), ‘The prime minister’s put us all in danger by calling this election.’
“He’s already saying that, and he’ll say it even more.”
Two Ontario MPPs face expulsion from Progressive Conservative caucus for refusing to get COVID-19 vaccinations
A rejection of the injection will lead to ejection.
The Star has learned that two Progressive Conservative MPPs face expulsion from the Tory caucus over their decisions to not get vaccinated against COVID-19.
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https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-tories-launch-bid-to-regain-power/
Erin O’Toole’s Tories launch bid to regain power after Trudeau calls snap election
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Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole speaks at the Westin hotel after Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau called an early election, in Ottawa on Aug. 15.
LARS HAGBERG/Reuters
Ian Bailey Published August 15, 2021
Erin O’Toole cast himself as an agent of change for a Conservative Party seeking a path back to government as he launched his first election campaign as Leader.
“I am a new leader with a new style,” Mr. O’Toole told a news conference in Ottawa shortly after Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced an election to be held on Sept. 20.
Since becoming Conservative Leader in August, 2020, Mr. O’Toole has taken a more moderate approach than his predecessor, with a plan to price carbon, a declaration of being pro-choice and showing solidarity with the LGBTQ community that, on Sunday, included a video posted to social media supporting the Montreal Pride March.
Mr. O’Toole touted his five-point “Recovery Plan” package of commitments that he plans to promote on the campaign trail. It includes a national mental-health plan, balancing the budget in a decade, instead of a more rushed approach, and creating one million jobs.
Party challenges and strategies for the 2021 federal election
Federal election 2021: Latest updates and essential reading ahead of Sept. 20’s vote
He also positioned his party as a fiscally prudent alternative to the Liberals, denouncing their government as “entitled” and borrowing $424-million a day, en route to racking up debt that’s now more than $1-trillion and that Mr. Trudeau is “going to ask you and your children to pay back.”
“There are five parties but two choices. Canada’s Conservatives or more of the same,” Mr. O’Toole told a news conference held in a studio at a downtown hotel.
At a party policy convention in March, Mr. O’Toole said change was key to the party getting ahead. The Conservatives need the “courage to change” in such ways as embracing climate change to connect with voters, he said at the time. Despite that, party members voted against including the phrase “climate change is real” in party material.
As the campaign began, Mr. O’Toole and the Tories also unveiled another tool key to their campaign. Although Mr. O’Toole will travel the country, the Tories will also rely on the use of a studio set in a downtown Ottawa hotel to execute programming and media events featuring the Conservative Leader.
Mr. O’Toole was scheduled to do town halls via telephone for Quebec and British Columbia.
“Using some of the innovations we’ve learned over the last year, I will be speaking to thousands of Canadians directly in Quebec, in British Columbia,” he said.
After launching his campaign, Mr. O’Toole faced immediate questions about why he won’t require Conservative candidates to get COVID-19 vaccines. Mr. O’Toole repeatedly noted that he and his wife publicized their vaccinations, and encouraged all Canadians to get vaccinated. He also said there can be “reasonable accommodations” around the issue using masking, rapid testing and screening.
“I can assure you the Conservative Party – all of our team members, all of our candidates – will be working hard to try and work with public-health leaders to follow health advice and to keep Canadians safe.”
There were also questions about a video clip that put Mr. Trudeau’s face on the body of a character from the 1971 feature film Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory to suggest the Liberal Leader is only interested in an election to secure a majority.
The move was denounced by some Conservative MPs. Blaine Calkins, who has represented the Alberta riding of Red Deer-Lacombe since 2015, called the video “tasteless and appalling.” Scott Aitchison, the incumbent MP for Parry Sound-Muskoka, tweeted that the video is “dumb,” but added, “Sadly they don’t ask me my opinion on these things.”
Mr. O’Toole did not directly answer a question on whether it is a setback to have caucus members criticize the video on the eve of an election, but instead said, “Conservatives are united,” without elaborating.
At dissolution, the Conservatives had 119 of the 338 seats in the House of Commons.
Dennis Matthews, who worked in advertising and communications for former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, said Mr. O’Toole has a lot of work to do in a very short time, to become part of the conversation among voters.
“The campaign is going to give him a very quick and high-profile opportunity to do that and so he’s got to accept that he’s starting at zero with a lot of voters, who don’t know anything about him,” said Mr. Matthews, head of the Creative Currency advertising agency.
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O’Toole says unvaccinated candidates to take daily COVID-19 tests, as Ford threatens to boot two MPPs over refusal to get vaccines
Laura Stone Queen's Park Reporter
Ian Bailey Quebec City Published August 18, 2021
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Conservative Party Leader Erin O'Toole takes photos with supporters after speaking at an election campaign rally in Richmond Hill, Ont., Aug. 17.
Federal Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says candidates who are not vaccinated against COVID-19 will have to submit to daily rapid tests, while Ontario Premier Doug Ford is threatening two of his caucus members with expulsion for not getting their shots.
The policy split between the two leading Tory figures comes on the third day of a federal election campaign that has seen mandatory vaccinations become a dividing issue. Both the federal Liberals and the NDP require their candidates to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, but the Tories do not.
Late Tuesday, Mr. Ford’s office confirmed that two MPPs in his 71-member caucus have not yet been vaccinated. Chief Government Whip Lorne Coe has given the two members until 5 p.m. Thursday to get a shot or provide a legitimate medical exemption – otherwise, they will be removed from caucus.
The Globe and Mail has reached out to the two MPPs for comment. One has not responded, and the other declined to comment.
“Due to the nature of their work, which involves daily interaction with members of the public, including the most vulnerable, it is our expectation that every single PC caucus member and candidate be vaccinated,” said Ivana Yelich, Mr. Ford’s executive director of media relations.
The directive was issued on the same day Ontario announced that it will require schools and employers in high-risk health care settings to have vaccination policies in place by Sept. 7. Unvaccinated workers will have to provide a medical exemption or undergo an educational session on the importance of vaccines, plus weekly antigen testing.
During a campaign stop in Quebec City Wednesday, Mr. O’Toole was asked about the Ford government’s new mandatory vaccination policy for its caucus – specifically, whether he would be adopting a similar requirement.
“Vaccines are a very important tool for combating COVID-19,” he replied in French. “I encourage all Quebeckers and all Canadians to get vaccinated, including my candidates and MPs. I expect my team to have a solid approach on all health measures across the country, including vaccines. But I will respect personal health decisions. But we need to use daily rapid testing if we have a candidate who is not vaccinated. I will repeat: Vaccines are very important. That’s why I’ve fought for adequate supply over the past year.”
In a COVID-19 campaigning directive sent to Conservative candidates Tuesday, the party said: “Our expectation is that anyone campaigning for our party who isn’t vaccinated will pass a daily rapid test.” Candidates will have to pay for their own tests, the party added.
The issue of mandatory vaccinations has been front and centre during the first week of the campaign. The Liberals last week announced that vaccination would be mandatory for all federal public servants and employees in federally regulated industries, as well as passengers on domestic flights, trains, buses and cruise ships. However, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has not provided key details of the plan, such as what happens in the case of refusal, saying only that there would be “consequences” for public servants.
That statement, along with comments by NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh threatening discipline or even termination if a federal employee were to refuse a shot, has drawn criticism from the Public Service Alliance of Canada, the country’s largest federal public service union. PSAC national president Chris Aylward told The Globe Tuesday that using such measures to enforce a vaccine mandate would be “totally unacceptable.”
The Conservatives have also asked the interim clerk of the Privy Council Office, Janice Charette, to launch an investigation into the removal Monday of an online government memo that seemed to contradict the Liberals’ mandatory vaccination policy. In the memo to deputy ministers, posted Friday, Christine Donoghue, the Chief Human Resources Officer of Canada, said the government would consider alternatives “such as testing and screening” for people who refuse to be vaccinated.
Mr. Trudeau told reporters the memo was taken down because it was erroneous and did not reflect government policy, adding that it was removed by the public service. He did not answer when asked whether his office or campaign team had any role in that decision.
The Liberal Leader has been critical of Mr. O’Toole’s stand on mandatory vaccinations. The Conservatives say public servants who refuse to be vaccinated would have to submit to daily rapid tests and unvaccinated travellers would have to undergo rapid tests or present a recent negative PCR test. Mr. Trudeau has said that doesn’t go far enough – his policy would be stricter.
In Quebec City Wednesday, Mr. O’Toole touted his party’s ethics-reform commitments, packaged in an anti-corruption bill that the party said it would pass.
“Canada needs tougher laws to require ethics in government,” Mr. O’Toole said.
Under the proposal, there would be an expansion of monetary penalties in the current Conflict of Interest Act to cover all violations of the act. It would prevent MPs from collecting speaking fees while serving in Parliament because, the platform document says, “Speaking to Canadians is part of the job.”
It would also increase the penalties from the current maximum of $500 to as much as $50,000, with the fine proportionate to the severity of the offence and the offender’s history and personal net worth.
Mr. O’Toole defended targeting an offender’s net worth. “For some people, a $500 fine will not drive better behaviour,” he said.
There would also be reforms to lobbying, including a ban on lobbying by an individual or entity on a matter that is the subject of a criminal proceeding, among other areas.
Mr. O’Toole has framed the need to deal with the overall issue of ethics in response to challenges facing Mr. Trudeau, who has twice been found in breach of conflict of interest laws – in 2017 and 2019.
Most recently, in May, Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion found that Mr. Trudeau did not breach the Conflict of Interest Act in the WE Charity controversy but that former finance minister Bill Morneau did.
Mr. O’Toole’s stop in Quebec also saw him appeal for support in a province where the election campaign is largely seen as a struggle between the Liberals and the Bloc Québécois. At dissolution, the Liberals had 35 seats in the province, the Bloc 32, the Conservatives 10 and the NDP one.
Mr. O’Toole touted the Conservatives’ defence of French as the working language of the province, a commitment to act on Quebec’s priorities and the party’s respect for the province’s jurisdiction, including transferring power in culture and immigration.
“I am going to be a partner, not a paternalist like Mr. Trudeau,” he said.
The party’s platform includes giving Quebec options to ensure that a higher proportion of immigrants settling in Quebec speak French, as well as making federal transfers for social programs free of what it describes, without explanation, as “restrictive conditions.”
There’s also a commitment to neither intervene in nor provide funding to support legal challenges to Bill 21, which bans public-sector workers in positions of authority from wearing religious symbols at work.
The Tories would also table legislation modernizing the Official Languages Act within 100 days of taking office.
Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet told reporters Wednesday his party requires vaccination and that as far as he knows, all candidates and staff have received their shots.
The Bloc leader campaigned Wednesday in the riding of Châteauguay—Lacolle, where his party finished a close second to the Liberals in 2019. At a campaign stop, Mr. Blanchet pushed back at suggestions from reporters that the sovereigntist party wasn’t talking much about an independent Quebec lately.
“So far, Quebec is not a country. It will come,” he said. “In the meantime, we have to adapt. We have to promote better ideas. We have to support initiatives from [Quebec’s National Assembly] in order to do what is best for our people. But never, never doubt the fact that there is no [policy] jurisdiction which would not be better managed by a government, which would be our own, and our own alone.”
With a report from Bill Curry in Ottawa
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Erin O’Toole isn’t just fighting an election, but also members of his own party
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LARS HAGBERG/Reuters
There may be no better example of the unique and difficult challenge Erin O’Toole faces as leader of the federal Conservative Party than his recently announced policy on mandatory vaccinations.
Mr. O’Toole is against measures that force Canadians to get vaccinated, regardless of what line of work they may be in. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has said federal workers must be vaccinated, as well as anyone who wants to fly or travel by train.
The Conservative Leader says he believes in the power and safety of vaccines, but doesn’t feel people should be forced to take them. Mr. Trudeau doesn’t believe people should be forced to take them either, but nor should the unvaccinated have the right to potentially pass COVID-19 on to others. Thus, the mandate.
A majority of Canadians are fully or partially vaccinated. And most of them, polls suggest, support vaccine mandates or vaccine passports that bestow certain rights and privileges on those who have chosen to get jabbed. In his heart, I think Mr. O’Toole believes this also. He just can’t endorse that policy because it would alienate a faction of his base – the libertarians and vaccine deniers – who think the state has no right imposing restrictive measures on anyone. These are voters Maxime Bernier and his People’s Party of Canada are trying to steal away from the Conservatives.
Welcome to Erin O’Toole’s world – or rather, his nightmare. While his central challenger in this election, Justin Trudeau, can be many things to many people, the Conservative Leader does not have that option. He is bound, in many ways, to a segment of the population resistant to change and who are suspicious of government intrusions of any sort into their lives, regardless of the reason.
This is why Mr. O’Toole can’t talk as forcefully as perhaps he needs to about an issue such as climate change. He has vowed to bring in carbon pricing but cap it at a mere $50 a tonne, which renders it mostly symbolic. (The Liberals will raise their carbon price to $170 a tonne by 2030.) Mr. O’Toole is restrained by conservative supporters in the Prairies, especially Alberta, who view carbon pricing as a useless tax grab and nothing more.
But how can someone who wants to lead this country be hamstrung politically when it comes to the No. 1 issue facing the planet, let alone the country?
Instead, many conservatives in Canada, including Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, prefer to ridicule and demonize those calling for stricter policies to cut emissions. While they are a minority, they are a minority whom Mr. O’Toole feels the need to protect – and pander to.
A ballooning federal debt would seem to be a natural opening for the Tories. However, many of the programs that debt has financed, including those associated with pandemic relief and the $10-a-day child care promise announced in the last budget, are incredibly popular. This has put Mr. O’Toole in the position of saying he’d balance the budget – but not for a decade. That’s about as meaningless a pledge as there is.
Mr. O’Toole is also not helped by the fact that many high-profile right-wing politicians in the country currently are a drag on the Conservative brand. That would include Ontario’s Doug Ford, Manitoba’s Brian Pallister and, perhaps most of all, Mr. Kenney in Alberta. His stock has fallen so far that the Liberals are eyeing the possibility of picking up four seats or more in the province in this election.
Mr. O’Toole has other issues to contend with as well. Some of his party’s ads have been downright appalling and have done nothing more than cast doubt on the Tories’ suitability for power and the leader’s personal judgment. He’s being sabotaged by his own marketing team.
Finally, poll after poll this past year has contained nothing but bad news for the Conservatives. Not only has the party consistently trailed the Liberals, but the numbers make clear that Canadians aren’t particularly enamoured with Mr. O’Toole, either. People find him bland, and lacking charisma.
A survey by Leger in July, for instance, indicated that more Canadians thought NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh would make a better prime minister than Mr. O’Toole. Mr. Singh even held a lead over Mr. O’Toole in the West. Ouch.
In total, this is a lot for any political leader to overcome. Erin O’Toole isn’t just fighting Justin Trudeau and the other federal leaders. In many respects, he’s also battling many in his own party – which is never good at election time.
There’s an operation underway to save these salmon. It requires poisoning a New Brunswick river
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NAPADOGAN, N.B.— In 2008, a fisherman at New Brunswick’s Miramichi Lake hooked a fish that wasn’t supposed to be there.
That catch set off a chain of events that ultimately led to this: More than a dozen biologists and conservationists tramping through the water across the Miramichi River on a muggy day last week, herding the water’s native salmon into a net.
The humans were there to stage an aquatic rescue mission ahead of a bold intervention that’s meant to set nature’s course right again.
One by one, they retrieved the salmon from their net — along with any other native river species — and transported them to a big, blue tank sitting in a pickup truck. When the tank was full, they drove — an hour over rattling, rutted logging roads — to a point well downstream, where, one by one, they released the fish carefully back into the river.
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Then they did it again. And again. And again. When they were done there, they moved to another spot along the river and repeated the whole process.
They were, to a person, in good humour; the sun beating warm on their shoulders, and the river water cool around their feet.
“We won’t get all the fish, but we’ll do our darndest to get as many as we can,” said Nathan Wilber, of the Atlantic Salmon Federation. Several moments later, he was removing salmon one-by-one from the back end of a fyke net and passing them to people who would start them on their journey.
Once their work was done, those gathered knew, the rescue mission would shift to its next stage.
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That comes Tuesday, when a poison will be poured into this portion of the river, and almost everything left in the water with gills will die.
The poison — rotenone, it’s called — is a temporary one.
Rotenone is a natural toxin derived from the root of bean plants in South America and the Pacific regions, used for centuries by Indigenous populations to catch fish. While it’s highly toxic to fish, it has low toxicity to birds and mammals.
It deteriorates rapidly with exposure to light, heat and oxygen, and biologists have picked this time of year — with warm water temperatures and low water levels and favourable life-cycle stages — with that in mind.
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By the time water flows the 10 kilometres downstream to where the salmon have been released — below a recently erected barrier preventing them from swimming back upstream — the toxin will be impotent, helped along that path by a release of potassium permanganate into the river along the way.
The fish that wasn’t supposed to be there in 2008 was a smallmouth bass, an invasive species. Though they’re not native to the Maritime provinces, they can now be found in more than 100 lakes and rivers in New Brunswick.
“None of the consequences of smallmouth bass introductions will be positive for Atlantic salmon,” reads a 2009 Fisheries and Oceans report on the appearance of the invasive species in the Miramichi.
Conservationists suspect that an initial few fish were released into Miramichi Lake at some point prior to 2008 for sport fishing; their numbers have increased drastically since then.
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And that’s a problem because the smallmouth bass, like many invasive species, has the potential to disrupt an entire ecosystem. They can out-compete other fish and can become dominant. They will prey on other fish, including young salmon.
“It’s a very voracious species,” says Devin Ward, a senior biologist for Anqotum Resource Management and a member of the Natoaganeg First Nation, which makes its home along the Miramichi.
“It defends its territory very well. And like all other bass species, they tend to eat everything in the area.”
That’s problematic because what’s in the area is the Atlantic salmon — the pearls of the Miramichi watershed. The New Brunswick river has one of the largest salmon runs on the planet and attracts visitors and fishers from across the world.
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But those salmon numbers have been dwindling. In 2020, according to the Miramichi Salmon Association, there were 15,000 small and large Atlantic salmon in the Miramichi River. That’s a worrisome drop from the 75,000 recorded there in 2011, and one that has a significant economic impact on the region.
“If a species like this was to get established in these headwater areas, that’s a new pressure that’s introduced … adding to the million other pressures that salmon are facing,” says Ward. “We fear that this might be the nail in the coffin for the species in the area.”
There’s an economic impact as well. A 2011 Atlantic Salmon Federation report — the most recent comprehensive study of the economic value of the Atlantic salmon — sets that value at $17 million. The salmon also creating 637 jobs, worth another $19.1 million.
In the 13 years since it was spotted in the Miramichi Lake, conservationists’ greatest fears have been realized — the smallmouth has migrated from the lake to the Miramichi River. In the lake, there were few if any salmon, but once the smallmouth invaded the headwaters of the Miramichi, where, to date, there have been no freshwater predators of salmon, the situation became much more dire.
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This is why groups of salmon stakeholders with the catchy moniker “Working Group on Smallmouth Bass Eradication in Miramichi Lake” — which includes the North Shore Micmac District Council, the Atlantic Salmon Federation and the Miramichi Salmon Association — began developing an eradication plan for the smallmouth bass menace.
By 2018, despite having pulled some 6,000 bass out of Miramichi Lake, Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) was no closer to controlling the smallmouth population than before. And the feds were adamant about not using toxins to the eradicate the fish. At the time, they seemed more inclined to merely wait and monitor the situation.
In August that year, after having presented DFO with a plan to use rotenone in the lake, the Working Group hosted a followup meeting with federal officials in Moncton.
Neville Crabbe of the Atlantic Salmon Federation remembers well the moment in that meeting when Jim Ward, the general manager of the North Shore Micmac District Council stood up.
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“‘Well,’ he said. ‘If you guys won’t do it, then we will.’”
“And then all of a sudden you have a really well-organized Indigenous proponent backed up by a fairly muscular and determined coalition of NGOs that just said, ‘We’ll do it,’” remembers Crabbe.
In May of this year, the Working Group finally got provincial and federal permissions sorted and began to put its massively ambitious, logistically complex plan into action.
It’s a task accomplished by rote in many other places in the country: in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Alberta, British Columbia and across the planet, most notably in Norway, where the government there adopted a 10-year plan to eradicate a parasite infecting wild salmon in the country’s rivers. The parasite was deemed capable of completely wiping out a river’s salmon population over the course of four to six years.
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Beginning around 2013, after establishing gene banks for their salmon, the Norwegians dosed entire river systems with rotenone, killing all the wild salmon therein.
To date, of the 50 rivers infected, 32 have been declared parasite-free and have had salmon reintroduced. A further 11 have been treated with rotenone and are awaiting a potential all-clear.
There have been many weeks leading up to it, and many people involved in various facets of the eradication plan, but on treatment day, the Working Group will launch its operation in earnest.
There will be more than 100 people in 46 crews, all dressed in personal protective equipment monitoring on and along the lake and the river.
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On Miramichi Lake, boats will traverse the lake, mixing rotenone with lake water and redistributing it. On the river, drip stations over the water will be set up to feed rotenone into the water flow.
After about 15 minutes, the first of the fish affected by the toxin will float to the surface. More will drop to the lake and river beds. Those that float will be gathered eventually up by crews and buried in pits dug for the purpose.
That’s merely for the benefit of homeowners around the lake, however. The scavengers that would gather to feed on the dead fish — eagles, ospreys, kingfishers and bears — would not be harmed by eating them. Although rotenone shows low toxicity for mammals, experts advise against eating the killed fish.
Over the next several days, the water will be monitored closely, assuring that the rotenone is breaking down as anticipated.
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For the next five years after that, the North Shore Micmac District Council will monitor the water, the sediment and the various fish species themselves, to make sure that the ecosystem is recovering as projected, with no adverse effects.
Back on the Miramichi, several kilometres downstream from where they were netted, Neville Crabbe and Caleb Koch cradle sleek, speckled salmon in the river’s flow, helping them recover from the stress of being transferred from their earlier home.
The water is ideal for them here; shallow on the bank where they are released, deeper and colder on the far side of the small, fast-moving current that divides the river. Koch and Crabbe move the fish gently in the water, helping them find their fins again.
Upstream, about 100 metres, is the recently erected barricade that prevents them from returning to their soon-to-be inhospitable home.
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At some point in the near future, it will be determined that their former haunts are safe for them; crews will come and remove that barricade and they will be able to return to their old stomping … swimming … grounds.
But for now, unaware of the massive, multi-year, multi-organizational effort to keep them safe, they rest temporarily, seemingly content to relax for a moment in trusted, helping hands.
And then, suddenly, a flick of a tail, a flash of silver, a splash of water. And they’re gone.
Leaving only smiles in their wake.
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Use of fish-killing pesticide in Miramichi watershed on pause
Wolastoqey grandmothers and mothers refuse to leave Miramichi Lake
A plan to eradicate smallmouth bass from Miramichi Lake and part of the southwest Miramichi River has been temporarily suspended.
The project was supposed to begin earlier this week but was delayed after several Wolastoqey grandmothers and mothers took to their canoes and kayaks on the lake so the chemical couldn't be applied.
Barrels of rotenone, a fish-killing pesticide, were lifted from boats and put on trucks Friday morning as boats were taken out of the water and crews began to leave the site.
A working group made up of several agencies, including the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the North Shore Micmac District Council and the New Brunswick Wildlife Federation, planned to use the chemical to kill invasive smallmouth bass, which are threatening the salmon population.
Brandy Stanovich says she's staying at the lake as long as she needs to. (Shane Fowler )
"It's bittersweet," said Brandy Stanovich, who arrived at the lake on Tuesday morning. "Because you feel so good to have the support and have people come and thank you and protect this place as well, but at the same it shouldn't be happening at all, and there's people that are really fighting to have it happen."
Stanovich said she hiked several hours on Tuesday morning to get past the roadblock set up by peace officers and to the lake.
![](https://thumbnails.cbc.ca/maven_legacy/thumbnails/634/423/rotenone.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:* 510w")
Project supporters denied junction
On Thursday afternoon, the Atlantic Salmon Federation filed an injunction to have the group removed from the lake, as the chemical could not be applied while people were on it.
In the motion, the federation said it had mobilized a large contingent of highly expert technical personnel, equipment operators, suppliers and other individuals as well as sophisticated technical equipment, which is essential to its operations.
But that injunction was dismissed by a judge that afternoon.
The North Shore Micmac District Council, which works on community development and other services with seven Mi'kmaw First Nations, has supported the rotenone project, but on Friday, Mi'kmaw chiefs expressed concerns about the level of consulttion with Wolastoqey First Nations.
Neville
Crabbe, spokesperson for the Working Group on Smallmouth Bass
Eradication in the Miramichi, says there will be more consultation with
Indigenous people. (Shane Fowler)
Mi'gmaq Chiefs of New Brunswick released a statement saying the conversation between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the First Nations had not been adequate.
"The Wolastoqey Nation did not receive all the information it asked for and did not receive proper advance notice of the planned treatment," the statement said. "North Shore Micmac District Council (NSMDC) acknowledges that not all community members received relevant materials related to this project and that better efforts should have been made to ensure information about the project was shared."
The North Shore Micmac District Council did not respond to CBC's request for an interview.
Spokesperson for the project Neville Crabbe said there had been two
years of Crown-led Indigenous consultation on the project, but
recognized there needed to be more.
- Spraying of rotenone in Miramichi watershed held off for second day
- Plan to use fish killer rotenone in N.B. lake, river delayed by environmental assessment
"We accept responsibility for that and are determined to reach out and reassure those people with facts and information about what we are, what we are going to do," said Crabbe.
"Which is a conservation project in the interest of the ecosystem of the Miramichi River, for the benefit of future generations of Indigenous and non-Indigenous New Brunswickers."
Crabbe said there was a cost of at least $30,000 a day to delay. He said scientists and crews had come from California, Montana, British Columbia and Maine to help with the application.
Crabbe says there are plans to ensure the project goes ahead in the coming weeks.
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