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Hume: B.C. taken to task for failure to inform public
Government has violated its duty to release information about incidents that put health and safety at risk, study finds By Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun June 5, 2012
The provincial government routinely fails its legal duty to promptly inform citizens of risks to public health and safety, warn legal scholars at the University of Victoria.
Failures to disclose include ... parasite infestations (in wild salmon), contaminated water and disease risk (in farmed salmon). Relevant information has been withheld from potential victims, scientists and the media — in some cases for almost a decade, says the university’s Environmental Law Clinic following a study of six cases across B.C. On Tuesday, the group asked the province’s information and privacy commissioner for a full investigation into what it says appears to be “an ongoing system-wide failure” by government to disclose in timely fashion information with clear public safety implications. The pattern needs to be addressed “before a catastrophe occurs,” it warned.
“Concerns about ‘panicking’ the public must not become an excuse for withholding information,” the call for investigation says. “In many cases, the fact that the information is alarming is precisely why it must be disclosed.” In 2002 and 2003, back-to-back collapses occurred in wild pink salmon populations migrating between Vancouver Island and the mainland. Concerns were raised that sea lice infestations around fish farm pens might play a role.
“The scientific community lacked important data on the abundance of sea lice at particular farms,” the researchers noted. But although the province held detailed records, it “refused to release the data, instead prioritizing the concerns of the aquaculture industry that the data be kept confidential.”
Only eight years later, following a direct order from the office of the information and privacy commissioner, did the province eventually release the critical data to scientists investigating the role of sea lice in wild salmon losses in 2002 and 2003.
(The study was done by Darryl Wightman, Emma Hume, Ethan Krindle and Carmen Gustafson. Their research was supervised by Environmental Law Clinic legal director Calvin Sandborn. Disclosure: Emma Hume is Stephen Hume’s niece. The full submission and supporting documents can be read at www.elc.uvic.ca)shume@islandnet.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/...nform+public/6735884/story.html#ixzz1x7VIr3Lw
Government has violated its duty to release information about incidents that put health and safety at risk, study finds By Stephen Hume, Vancouver Sun June 5, 2012
The provincial government routinely fails its legal duty to promptly inform citizens of risks to public health and safety, warn legal scholars at the University of Victoria.
Failures to disclose include ... parasite infestations (in wild salmon), contaminated water and disease risk (in farmed salmon). Relevant information has been withheld from potential victims, scientists and the media — in some cases for almost a decade, says the university’s Environmental Law Clinic following a study of six cases across B.C. On Tuesday, the group asked the province’s information and privacy commissioner for a full investigation into what it says appears to be “an ongoing system-wide failure” by government to disclose in timely fashion information with clear public safety implications. The pattern needs to be addressed “before a catastrophe occurs,” it warned.
“Concerns about ‘panicking’ the public must not become an excuse for withholding information,” the call for investigation says. “In many cases, the fact that the information is alarming is precisely why it must be disclosed.” In 2002 and 2003, back-to-back collapses occurred in wild pink salmon populations migrating between Vancouver Island and the mainland. Concerns were raised that sea lice infestations around fish farm pens might play a role.
“The scientific community lacked important data on the abundance of sea lice at particular farms,” the researchers noted. But although the province held detailed records, it “refused to release the data, instead prioritizing the concerns of the aquaculture industry that the data be kept confidential.”
Only eight years later, following a direct order from the office of the information and privacy commissioner, did the province eventually release the critical data to scientists investigating the role of sea lice in wild salmon losses in 2002 and 2003.
(The study was done by Darryl Wightman, Emma Hume, Ethan Krindle and Carmen Gustafson. Their research was supervised by Environmental Law Clinic legal director Calvin Sandborn. Disclosure: Emma Hume is Stephen Hume’s niece. The full submission and supporting documents can be read at www.elc.uvic.ca)shume@islandnet.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Read more: http://www.vancouversun.com/health/...nform+public/6735884/story.html#ixzz1x7VIr3Lw
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