Popham letter had extensive input
Staff urged changes so demand to fish farm seemed less threatening
B.C. government officials expressed concern that a letter from Agriculture Minister Lana Popham to a coastal fish farm might be construed as a threat to the company’s ability to continue operating in B.C. waters, according to documents obtained by Postmedia News.
Political staff urged changes to Popham’s letter just three hours before it was sent to coastal fish farm company Marine Harvest on Oct. 13, 2017, emails released under the Freedom of Information Act request show.
“If we’re going to use the shortened letter, I’d suggest a slight amendment to the final paragraph,” wrote Tim Renneberg, ministerial assistant to Forests Minister Doug Donaldson, in one of 124 pages of emails released.
“Taking out ‘I want to be clear’ alters the tone and the slight change to the last sentence makes it more matter-of-fact and less threatening.”
Renneberg later added in another email: “My concern is that the shortened letter sounds like a not-very-veiled threat, which is not the intent of the letter.”
The letter received last-minute revisions and approval from the highest levels of government, including three cabinet ministers, three deputy ministers, Premier John Horgan’s chief of staff and the head of the civil service, Don Wright.
Nonetheless, once public, the backlash plunged the NDP government into a crisis.
The government faced days of criticism that it had tried to intimidate Marine Harvest by warning that its provincial tenures may not be renewed if it restocked its fish supply during protests from local First Nations opposed to open pen salmon farms.
The fallout forced Horgan to intervene on Popham’s behalf, field most of her questions in the legislature, remove her from the file, backtrack on a key paragraph of the letter and eventually appoint Wright to conduct an independent review of fish farm science.
The FOI records contain a number of telling exchanges regarding the controversial letter.
Officials were spurred by a “rush” to draft it from Popham, who personally intervened in a fish farm tenure process that is supposed to be handled by non-partisan civil servants within the separate ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations.
Political staff to cabinet ministers then inserted a contentious reference to the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which Premier Horgan was later forced to clarify did not have any specific application to the company’s current tenures.
Marine Harvest operates several open-pen salmon fish farms off B.C.’s coast, north of Vancouver Island in the Broughton Archipelago. Though it has some agreements with local First Nations, there are others who view the farms and fish diseases as a threat to wild salmon. At the time of the letter, two of Marine Harvest’s fish farms had been occupied for weeks by protesters.
The documents show Popham did not want Marine Harvest to restock its fish supply at the protest sites. She tried to get federal Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc to intervene during a meeting in October 2017. “She asked him if he could stop the restocking at the protest sites,” assistant deputy minister of agriculture James Mack wrote in an Oct. 11 email.
“He didn’t respond to this request either way … she’s asked me to see what can be done.”
Popham’s deputy minister, Wes Shoemaker, at first raised concerns. “They cannot delay restocking,” he replied. “Port Elizabeth is their only site so they say. If they don’t hit salt water in the next couple of days they will die.”
Nonetheless, the next day Popham’s ministerial assistant William Beale turned up the political pressure in an email to the deputy minister’s manager of executive operations and planning Georgina Hodson.
“Georgina can we please get someone working on a draft letter to Marine Harvest asking that given the current tension they not restock and that may help get the parties to the table,” he wrote. “This may or may not go out but it will be good to have in our hands.”
That prompted Hodson to send a note to other seniors officials in the ministry asking, “Could you please
action out (on a rush) a ministers (sic) letter to Marine Harvest.”
Several senior bureaucrats took a run at the first draft, after a conference call. Then the political staff got involved.
Renneberg suggested they insert a paragraph reminding Marine Harvest of the United Nations Declarations on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and how “companies should be making every effort to develop and maintain healthy relationships with First Nations.”
“If we add this (below) to the original letter, attached, it does show the intent of what we are trying to do, get all parties to keep the long term in mind as we get to negotiations,” added Kenn McLaren, also a ministerial assistant in forests.
UNDRIP calls on First Nations to give prior and informed consent before projects are allowed on their territory. Some have suggested it provides First Nations a veto.
Horgan was forced to publicly backtrack on this paragraph of the letter, once it became public, saying the concerns with Marine Harvest were mainly around declining wild salmon stocks and not UNDRIP.
The letter was eventually sent to the company on Oct. 13. Shortly after, it became public. Marine Harvest, which restocked its supply anyway, has said the letter made it nervous because it gave the message that government might revoke its permit even though it was operating lawfully.
The Opposition Liberals spent several days criticizing government in the legislature, accusing it of intimidating a lawful business simply because Popham personally opposes fish farms.
The Liberals accused Popham of activism and gave her the nickname the “minister of intimidation.” But the records show Forests Minister Donaldson and Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser also approved the letter.
At around the same time as the letter controversy, Popham faced criticism she was unfairly targeting one of her own ministry fish scientists with a review of his work.
The situation dovetailed with her letter, prompting Horgan to ask deputy minister Wright to conduct the review of fish farm science independently of Popham.
The premier’s office said Tuesday that Wright’s review is complete but his findings are still being reviewed.