Stephen Harper is about to speak to a smallish Tory crowd at the Coast Victoria Harbourside Hotel and Marina. The view here on this sunny day couldn’t be better. Just below the hotel where he’s speaking is the office of Orca Spirit Adventures whale watching company. (A few years back, I spent a memorable day on one of their boats, which I can see docked from where I’m writing.)
Stephen Harper is about to speak to a smallish Tory crowd at the Coast Victoria Harbourside Hotel and Marina. The view here on this sunny day couldn’t be better. Just below the hotel where he’s speaking is the office of Orca Spirit Adventures whale watching company. (A few years back, I spent a memorable day on one of their boats, which I can see docked from where I’m writing.)
The location is important, given that today’s Victoria Times-Colonist features a front page story under the headline “Killer whales threatened by salmon shortage.” Salmon stocks are down, the whales aren’t getting enough to eat, and they are “losing blubber and developing strange behavioural patterns.”
Stock markets will bounce back, eventually. We know that, no matter how worried we get. But fish stocks? They have a way of collapsing permanently. In this case, the black and white whales would go with them. It would be helpful to know what the Fisheries and Oceans department has to say about today’s news in the local paper, which is based on reports from independent scientists.
But the Times-Colonist tells us that a DFO official said the federal government’s experts are not granting interviews during the election campaign. This strikes me as absurd. By the way, the Prime Minister will be talking about banks today.