SONIA Furstenau, Leader of the B.C. Greens, in response to the NDP’s announcement that they would double funding for the BC Salmon Restoration and Innovation fund, said: “The initial funding for the B.C. Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund came out of work that my colleague Adam Olsen did and I’m glad to see the NDP promise to commit more resources to it.”

She noted: “Adam has been a tireless advocate for wild salmon and was successful in pushing the NDP minority government on this file. When it became clear that wild salmon were in alarming decline, he was the one who raised this with the government. Adam consulted widely for a year, meeting with First Nations, commercial fisheries, conservation groups, and the federal DFO minister, before organizing a campaign to create a Wild Salmon Secretariat for BC. The NDP agreed and worked with Adam to create the Wild Salmon Advisory Council, of which he was a member.

“Together we worked hard to keep the issues facing wild salmon and steelhead on the agenda at the B.C. Legislature and in negotiation during the budget process.  This year alone Adam and I worked to get nearly $65 million in habitat restoration, conservation, cleanup funding. We also legislated science-based climate policies, including reporting and transparency requirements, and negotiated new Environmental Assessment and Professional Governance laws to better capture and manage cumulative environmental impacts – many of which are causing or contributing to the decline of our wild fisheries.” 

Furstenau added: “The B.C. Greens would also go further than the NDP policies announced today and cancel open-net ocean based fish farms tenures and provide supports to transition to land based closed containment – for the whole coast, not just in the Broughton Archipelago.”