It may be a little fish, but it might just provide for a big backlash!
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They can expect a blizzard of e mails and letters and a rising tide of angry phone calls at DFO for the next few days. All of that anger will be coming from the 604 and 250 area codes as word gets out that DFO has decided not to allow the annual CKNW herring sale to take place this year.
Citing a recent court case in New Brunswick that stated “you can’t take fish out of the ocean for charity”, the bureaucratic wheels have decided that the orphans and injured fishermen of British Columbia cannot benefit from the one day herring sale a tradition for more than fifty years in British Columbia.
Over the years, the herring sale has been organized by British Columbia’s most listened to radio station with the proceeds split between the CKNW orphans fund and a fund from the T Buck Suzuki foundation for fishermen injured during the course of their days on the seas.
Citing a recent court case in New Brunswick that stated “you can’t take fish out of the ocean for charity”, the bureaucratic wheels have decided that the orphans and injured fishermen of British Columbia cannot benefit from the one day herring sale a tradition for more than fifty years in British Columbia.
Over the years, the herring sale has been organized by British Columbia’s most listened to radio station with the proceeds split between the CKNW orphans fund and a fund from the T Buck Suzuki foundation for fishermen injured during the course of their days on the seas.
The sale combines the media platform that the CKNW platform provides with the volunteer assistance of the Canadian Fishing Company and the members of UFAWU-CAW.
In recent years the sale has had to be cancelled due to bad weather, when the conditions made it unsafe to head out to bring in the charity load, or or due to a shortage of the fish, but never has it been cancelled due to an unexpected front of bureaucratic red tape rolling in.
Needless to say, the Vancouver radio station has made it the cause of the day on the air. Asking listeners to e mail, fax or call in their support to try and get the sale back on track for next year. And considering the size of the stations audience and its stature in the Lower Mainland as the main source of information, there’s a very good chance that very few people in southern BC will be unaware of the government edict. That makes for an awful lot of angry taxpayers from BC looking to blame somebody.
We're not sure who is in charge of Public Relations at the fisheries department, but the vision of denying orphans and injured fishermen the proceeds of a one day charity sale is certainly not the way to win hearts and minds of an already suspicious public.
In recent years the sale has had to be cancelled due to bad weather, when the conditions made it unsafe to head out to bring in the charity load, or or due to a shortage of the fish, but never has it been cancelled due to an unexpected front of bureaucratic red tape rolling in.
Needless to say, the Vancouver radio station has made it the cause of the day on the air. Asking listeners to e mail, fax or call in their support to try and get the sale back on track for next year. And considering the size of the stations audience and its stature in the Lower Mainland as the main source of information, there’s a very good chance that very few people in southern BC will be unaware of the government edict. That makes for an awful lot of angry taxpayers from BC looking to blame somebody.
We're not sure who is in charge of Public Relations at the fisheries department, but the vision of denying orphans and injured fishermen the proceeds of a one day charity sale is certainly not the way to win hearts and minds of an already suspicious public.
Officials at DFO and the public can relive the outrage at the CKNW audio vault, where the entire two and a half hour morning show from Wednesday, complete with incredulous tales of silly regulations and tales of orphans soon to go without help, can be replayed over and over again for the next couple of weeks.
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