Watch five minute video of Alexandra Morton's recent press conference discussing her victory and what it means for the future of wild salmon on BC's coast
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We at Save Our Rivers Society are proud as punch of our Board of Advisors whose individual and collective knowledge of fish and their habitat easily outshines anything industry or the Campbell government can claim (though I admit that’s damning with very faint praise). In that truly august body of advisors is my hero, Alexandra Morton, who a couple of weeks ago, along with her co-plaintiffs, won a landmark lawsuit which declared that the Federal government has exclusive jurisdiction over fisheries and that fish farms constitute a fishery. The judge gave Fisheries and Oceans Canada a year to get its act together. It is a justified humiliation for the Campbell government.

Let me tell you a bit about Alex. She came to us from the United States in 1979 as a biologist studying whales. She fell in love with and married a Canadian biologist of similar inclinations – including marriage to this lovely lady. Tragedy struck when with Alex and their young son watched Robin Morton drown due to faulty diving gear.

A few years ago Alex became concerned at the number of sea lice in the channels in the Broughton Archipelago and the effect they might be having on tiny migrating wild salmon smolts. If there were a problem, was it in any way related to the Atlantic Salmon fish cages that were situated right in the paths of these migrating wild fish? She did her testing and to make a long story a bit shorter she found that there indeed was a relationship and that millions of small wild salmon were dying  from predatory lice so that large international fish farmers could ply their trade in nicely suitable, for them, channels.

The sea lice issue is simple to understand. Fish farms have hundreds of thousands of Salmon (hosts) with millions of lice that nail the wild salmon smolts as they run the gauntlet of these farms.

Alex was hit with everything but the ring post along the way - Fisheries and Oceans Canada threatened to arrest her for illegal testing; the fish farmers hired Hill and Knowlton, the world's largest PR firm, to discredit her - they also hired a flatulent discredited former Greenpeacer to try to discredit her. The Provincial Liberal government called into question her scientific integrity. She was pilloried by the local press, mostly ignored by the mainstream media, and constantly badmouthed by the “establishment”.

Before long, the world's acknowledged scientists in this field validated her work and her findings - some of them did studies of their own which confirmed Alex's work. She was peer published many times over - in the world's top journals, like Science - yet the fish farmers kept fighting. The ex-Greenpeacer attacked her personally; the governments ignored her findings and claimed that all the science was on their side; the mayor of Port McNeil, Gerry Furney, set up a picket line, complete with him badmouthing me on a loud hailer, to prevent my wife and me going into the archipelago to view the situation with Alex. I don’t mind admitting that I was scared for our safety.

The struggle between the time Alex got onto the sea lice issue and her recent court victory was such that I don’t know how she stayed the course. But she did and recently the BC Salmon Forum chaired by former House of Commons Speaker John Fraser confirmed, as if confirmation was needed, that fish farms and their lice pose a huge risk to migrating wild salmon smolts.

The legal victory has been pooh-poohed by the usual suspects but it has been a terrific morale booster for Alex and all of us who proudly fight under her leadership. Moreover, The Campbell government finds itself in the position of having to file their Notice of Appeal, if that’s the route they decide to go, right in the middle of the election campaign.

For the general public, however, this case means that the Campbell government stands shamed – at least they ought to feel ashamed – by a doughty fighter that took all the abuse they could give her, stood her ground and is gloriously vindicated.

Need I say how proud we at Save Our Salmon Society to have Alexandra as an advisor?

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