The B.C. provincial election is around the corner (Saturday, October 24). Will you help ensure your candidates make clean water and wild salmon a priority?

Find a town hall or  all-candidates meeting in your area in the table below. And be sure to join the debate on climate and the environment with BC NDP Environment Minister George Heyman, BC Liberal former Environment Critic Peter Milobar, and BC Green Party leader Sonia Furstenau on October 15 at 7 p.m. Register on Zoom or join the Facebook event to follow live.

Party platforms are also linked below.

There are many ways to make your voice heard during election time: 

• By submitting questions at virtual town halls, debates and all-candidates meetings; 
• when you’re phoned or visited by your candidate or someone on their team;
• on social media;
• on radio phone-in shows; or
• by visiting a candidate’s campaign office (in a COVID-safe manner). 

The important thing is to just pick one and do it! And to help, we’ve compiled some questions you can ask. 

Remember to be respectful and brief, but make sure they answer your questions. Bring your questions on paper in case you need to leave them with a candidate for follow-up. You may want to record the answers to your questions so you can hold your future representative to account!

Preamble: Introduce yourself briefly and say something about the importance of wild salmon and clean water to you and your family. State your concern about the massive declines we are seeing. 

Some questions you can ask:

• • Restoring habitat is critical to rebuilding struggling wild salmon runs and helping them adapt to climate change. Thousands of kilometres of salmon habitat are needlessly blocked by old culverts and obsolete flood control structures around B.C. If elected, will your government commit to significantly increasing salmon habitats by funding and implementing proven fish-friendly solutions for flood control and fish passage? And will you also commit to creating a long-term Watershed Security Fund to protect and restore our watersheds?

• • Salmon farms spread harmful viruses and parasites to young wild salmon and British Columbians want them gone. The province and First Nations are making historic progress by removing 17 salmon farms from the Broughton Archipelago but it’s business as usual everywhere else, including the Discovery Islands where farms were supposed to be removed this year. The federal government committed to working with the province to transition B.C. salmon farms to closed-containment facilities where they can’t harm wild salmon, but they’re dragging their heels and ignoring evidence of harm. These farms require provincial licenses to operate. If elected, would you immediately cancel the leases for salmon farms in the Discovery Islands and give notice to all the other salmon farms that their leases will terminate no later than the federal government’s transition date of 2025?

• • Clean, abundant water is the lifeblood of our province and good resource development should never degrade our watersheds—the source of our freshwater. B.C.’s new Water Sustainability Act isn’t being properly implemented and our watersheds are getting trashed. We need our provincial government to get tough on water wasters and polluters, with stronger rules and better enforcement. If elected, will you commit to fully implementing and enforcing the Water Sustainability Act and the Drinking Water Protection Act? And will you also commit to hiring an independent Chief Watershed Security Officer with the resources, powers, and staff to enforce the regulations that keep our rivers and salmon safe?

• • Rebuilding wild salmon runs has never been more important. Dozens of wild salmon populations across our province are endangered or threatened, including Fraser River steelhead. Most salmon species are federally managed, but steelhead are a provincial responsibility. The current provincial government supported the federal decision last year to not list two endangered Fraser steelhead populations under Canada’s Species at Risk Act. They also promised to introduce a B.C. species-at-risk law, which never materialized. If elected, will you support the rebuilding of B.C.’s endangered salmon runs under Canada’s Species at Risk Act and commit to creating a strong B.C. species-at-risk law to rebuild provincially managed species like wild steelhead?

• • Fishing is a cornerstone of B.C. life. It’s essential to First Nations and puts healthy, wild food on the tables of families across our province. B.C.’s provincial governments have a dark history of supporting fishing practices that contribute to the decline of wild salmon, and promoting artificial hatcheries rather than fixing the root causes. Large-scale hatchery production endangers the survival of wild salmon. We need our provincial government to embrace modern sustainable fishing practices that allow for the harvest of healthy, abundant wild salmon runs while leaving endangered stocks to recover. If elected, will you support a transition to modern selective fishing methods that reduce the catch of endangered fish, without relying on hatcheries? And will you support stronger enforcement and independent monitoring of salmon fisheries?

These suggested questions are based on the work we are doing at Watershed Watch. If you have other good questions to ask your candidates, go for it! Stay strong, be safe, and thank you for standing up for wild salmon.

Visit Elections BC for more information about voting safely in B.C.’s election.

Read the Party Platforms

BC Liberals platform

BC NDP platform

Greens of British Columbia platform

Town Halls and All-candidates Meetings in your Area