Tag Archives: Lisa Marie Barron

Cost of Climate Change, Rivers & Oceans

Fisheries and Oceans Canada expects to flounder under mounting climate costs

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Hurricane Fiona left a trail of destruction across the Atlantic Coast in September 2022 wreaking havoc on wharves, fisheries, vessels, and gear and the federal government’s pocketbook.

In response to the climate disaster, Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has had to earmark more than $563 million to deal with Fiona’s aftermath, including damage to 142 out of 184 small craft harbours on the Atlantic coast.

However, internal communications obtained by Canada’s National Observer suggest that Hurricane Fiona was just a harbinger of escalating climate-related costs and operational threats DFO expects to face in the coming years. With a shrinking budget, the department is bracing for more severe financial and logistical challenges as the climate crisis intensifies.

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Rivers & Oceans

Fisheries and Oceans Canada faces deluge of calls to improve ‘suspect’ science

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is being flooded with calls for change after a parliamentary committee examined how the federal agency conducts, interprets and acts on its own science. 

The investigation ended with 49 recommendations to address concerns about how DFO science is presented to the fisheries minister and the public before important political decisions are made — particularly those involving B.C. salmon farms or commercial fisheries on either coast. 

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Rivers & Oceans

Canada’s not prepared to handle marine cargo spills, House committee finds

Canada’s National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A parliamentary committee wants Ottawa to limit the environmental damage and plug response gaps for marine cargo spills after a container ship lost more than 100 sea cans and was immobilized by a stubborn fire on the B.C. coast last year. 

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Rivers & Oceans

Canada invests more in oceans protection, but measures fail to salvage sinking fishing boat

By Melissa Renwick, Ha-Shilth-Sa, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the next phase of Canada’s Oceans Protection Plan on July 19. It comes with a commitment to add $2 billion over nine years.

This builds on the $1.5 billion that’s been directed towards the program, which was launched in 2016.

Established to strengthen the protection of Canada’s coasts and wildlife, the Oceans Protection Plan is being labelled as a “Canadian success story” by the prime minister’s office (PMO).

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Rivers & Oceans

Feds leaving West Coast fishing sector to flounder after salmon closures, harvesters say

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The West Coast fishing sector is being hung out to dry and deserves a just transition like other climate-affected industries after the federal government put in widespread closures to the salmon fishery last year, the fish harvesters union says. 

Boat captains, crews, and shore workers are suffering dire economic hardship with zero emergency or transitional supports after the ministry of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) closed 79 salmon fisheries last June, said James Lawson, president of the United Fishermen and Allied Workers’ Union (UFAWU). 

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