BC Salmon Farmers Assoc. deflects blame for its contaminated fish
Letter to the BC Salmon Farmers Association

A few weeks ago [early May], I saw you respond negatively to a letter asking for independent testing of your farmed salmon. Now, two of your farms have tested positive for the highly contagious IHN virus, resulting in the ordered killing of your stocks. Without any proof, you place the blame of your outbreaks entirely on wild fish, while deceptively proclaiming IHN won’t harm wild salmon. Those studies you quote were done on adult salmon, yet you don’t mention numerous studies showing IHN to be “deadly to juvenile wild salmon” – you know, the innocent ones now swimming past your filthy, infected farms. While the world’s leading labs are confirming a myriad of “European strain” diseases from store-bought BC farmed salmon, you not only deny those findings as well, but arrogantly still refuse independent testing. This has many of us questioning your ethics or lack thereof. Since your main argument with independent lab results is about “foul play” or “contamination,” why don’t you accompany your fish to the lab just to make sure there’s no hanky panky going on? If your fish are as squeaky clean as you claim, there should be no problem. The public and wild salmon deserve to know.

– Angela Koch, Quadra Island

What is this thing we call peace?

Thank you for creating an opportunity to remember and celebrate Peace with the June 30th Walk for peace!  What is this thing we call peace? For me Peace is not the antithesis of war just like Love is not the opposite of hate. Thankfully it goes much deeper than that. I believe Peace is the promise seeded into the heart of all humanity. We are its soil and it can live in and through us. The question is how do we remember, uncover, and nurture that seed as much as we long for it to nurture us. We all seek the freedom peace brings. No one says “I don’t want peace.” Yet, we all have our own journey toward it. Some paths appear more productive than others. Declaring war on war does not seem to encourage it. However, opening our hearts and standing up to injustice seems to nurture it not only in ourselves but in others as well. When we seek to shelter ourselves from the world and the “other” perhaps we have only a small peace, a momentary piece of something much much grander.  

Perhaps Peace is that wholeness, that fulfillment we seek whether in ourselves, our community or in all humanity. Ah…to be one with it all. As the monk said to the hotdog vender, “Make me one with everything”. Perhaps we are all a little like that monk wanting everything from the hotdog stand of life. Perhaps we cannot fill that hole by consuming everything but by realizing our connection (for apparent better or worse) to the whole. Could it really be that we are a part of everything and everything is a part of us… that somehow Peace connects us with the experience of truly being one? One with everything….EVERYTHING??? But what about the pain and the hurt? Surely you aren’t saying “I” am one with aggression or cruelty at times. Ah there is the rub! It is the fear of our own shadows that keep us insecure, isolated, defending and blaming. Thank goodness for compassion. It is the balm (not bomb) of peace. With it, we can even claim our connection through the shadows.  Sweet Peace!  

What ever is your path to peace, come walk, run, skate, skip. Bring your god, kids, main squeeze and perhaps even your enemies. This celebration of peace is for everyone from the activist to the mediators, the squatter to the police person, the corporate executive to the hippie. It is for you and me. 

“There is a field beyond right and wrong. I’ll meet you there.” Let’s walk together!

In appreciation, Jerry Namgyle Ewen

P.S. Let’s set off a chain of peace activities with this walk. Vancouver Playback Theatre, is partnering with Peace It Together for an event called Peace: Stories and Films; Victories and Challenges!  on June 30, 7:00 – 9:15, at Centre for Peace, Burrard and 16th, Great Hall.  Tickets online at www.playbacktheatre.com adults $12, children $8. At the door $15. Seating limited. Part proceeds go to Peace It Together. j