XPost: can.politics, bc.politics, van.general   
   XPost: vic.general, ont.politics   
   From: ConsR@minority.gov   
      
   He's silenced environmental groups, protest groups, Canadian scientists, and   
   now he's aiming   
   for our oceans watchdogs.   
   All in preparation for Albertan tarsands access to Pacific coast waters - and   
   shipment of the   
   dirty oil to China.   
      
   We can stop him if we make sure his rightwing Premier, Christy Clark, and her   
   party are   
   defeated in 2013.  Work for it.   
   BC's environment and coastal waters are at stake.   
   ________________________________________________________   
    May 20, 2012   
      
   Killer whale expert out of work as Ottawa cuts ocean-pollution monitoring   
   positions   
      
   VICTORIA — Canada’s only marine mammal toxicologist at the Institute of Ocean   
   Sciences on   
   Vancouver Island is losing his job as the federal government cuts almost all   
   employees who   
   monitor ocean pollution across Canada.   
      
   Peter Ross, an expert on killer whales and other marine mammals, was the lead   
   author of a   
   report 10 years ago that demonstrated Canada’s killer whales are the most   
   contaminated marine   
   mammals on the planet. He has more than a 100 published reports.   
      
   Now, he’s a casualty of the Conservative’s budget cuts, one of 75 people   
   across Canada told   
   this past week his services will no longer be needed because the Department of   
   Fisheries is   
   closing the nation’s contaminants program.   
      
   For about a decade, Fisheries and Oceans has been trying to offload the   
   program to Environment   
   Canada, Ross said. Instead, this week, it axed it.   
   In total, 1,075 people working for the Department of Fisheries received   
   letters Thursday   
   telling them their jobs will be redundant or affected — including 215 in the   
   Pacific Region.   
      
   The closure of DFO’s contaminants program in Victoria will see nine marine   
   scientists and   
   staff — two research scientists, a chemist and six support staff — based in   
   North Saanich lose   
   their jobs or be retrained and moved.   
      
   The entire Department of Fisheries and Oceans contaminants program is being   
   shut down effective   
   April 1, 2013. Official letters are expected to be delivered in June, and Ross   
   said he’s been   
   told he’ll have a few months to wrap up his files.   
      
   “The entire pollution file for the government of Canada, and marine   
   environment in Canada’s   
   three oceans, will be overseen by five junior biologists scattered across the   
   country — one of   
   which will be stationed in B.C.,” said Ross.   
      
   “I cannot think of another industrialized nation that has completely excised   
   marine pollution   
   from its radar,” said Ross, who was informed in a letter Thursday that his   
   position will be   
   “affected.”   
      
   “It is with apprehension that I ponder a Canada without any research or   
   monitoring capacity for   
   pollution in our three oceans, or any ability to manage its impacts on   
   commercial fish stocks,   
   traditional foods to over 300,000 aboriginal people, and marine wildlife,”   
   Ross said.   
      
   Ross oversees pollution files including everything from municipal sewage and   
   contaminated sites   
   to the effect of pesticide on salmon and the impact of PCBs on killer whales.   
      
   If we can understand through scientific means the threats to killer whales   
   listed as endangered   
   or threatened, then we are in a much better position to protect and recover   
   that species, Ross   
   said.   
      
   DFO spokeswoman Melanie Carkner said between Fisheries and the Canadian Coast   
   Guard, about   
   $79.3 million in savings has been found, “primarily by adjusting our internal   
   operations and   
   administration.”   
      
   “We will be removing about 400 positions from DFO’s 11,000-strong workforce,”   
   Carkner said.   
   “This works out to less than two per cent a year over three years.”   
      
   The department said it is refocusing its research on conservation and   
   fisheries management: “In   
   lieu of in-house research on the biological effects of contaminants and   
   pesticides, the   
   department will establish an advisory group and research fund of $1.4 million   
   a year to work   
   with academia and other independent facilities to get advice on priority   
   issues.”   
      
   Green Party leader Elizabeth May, MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands, said it’s   
   shocking to lose all   
   the toxin-related research going on at the Institute for Ocean Sciences and   
   across Canada,   
   especially when the Conservative government is “blindly and recklessly   
   enthusiastic about   
   putting oil tankers on B.C.’s coastline.”   
      
   “I will do everything I can to stop this government’s budget bill,” May said   
   of the Budget   
   Implementation Act, Bill C-38.   
      
   Deficit reduction is important, she said. “But to take out an entire group,   
   that’s not prudent   
   fiscal management, that’s driven by ideology that doesn’t want to know what   
   toxic chemicals are   
   doing in the oceans and freshwater.”   
      
   Related   
     a.. Ignoring green practices will hurt Canadian businesses: federal advisory   
   panel   
      
     b.. Mulcair steps up environmental attacks after Tories refuse to split   
   omnibus bill   
      
     c.. Jesse Kline: Getting to the bottom of Harper’s ‘war on nature’   
      
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   ***************   
                           We hang the petty thieves and elect the greatest ones   
   to public office.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)