Grandparent scam: London, Ont., senior beats fraudsters not once, but twice
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
As a teenager, Murray Ned was accustomed to fishing for salmon three days a week all year round on the Fraser River in southwestern British Columbia.
Three decades later, the longtime Sumas First Nation councillor and member of the joint U.S.-Canadian Pacific Salmon Commission said he expects salmon fisheries on the river will have opened for a total 25 days or less for the entire year.
Salmon are in crisis, he said, while Indigenous, commercial and recreational fishers await details on the federal government's latest plan to recover plummeting stocks.
"We're literally losing our food security, but also our cultural security and integrity and connection to the Fraser River and the salmon species that go along with it," Ned, who's also the executive director of the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance.
"The ability to transfer knowledge to youth from elders ... we're losing that every day that we're not able to be on the river."
Complete data on salmon that returned to their spawning streams this year is not yet available,but Fisheries and Oceans has said many stocks are declining to "historic lows" due to the impacts of climate change, habitat loss and other threats.
In the last budget, Ottawa pledged close to $650 million over five years for the Pacific Salmon Strategy Initiative unveiled in June, but few details have been released about how the money would be spent on salmon recovery plans.
Ned said he sees the salmon strategy initiative as "a black hole right now."
In a video posted online, former Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan called the initiative "the largest, most transformative investment in salmon by any government in history," and says it would be "built from the ground up," in partnership with all levels of government, Indigenous peoples, industry and environmental groups.
A new minister has yet to be named after Jordan lost her seat in the Sept. 20 vote that gave Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Liberals another minority government.
Ottawa's new strategy has four pillars: conservation, with improved habitat monitoring and ecosystem planning, enhancing hatcheries, "transforming" fisheries, and collaborating with different levels of government, including Indigenous nations.
The plan would add $100 million to the $142.85 million B.C. Salmon Restoration and Innovation Fund and create a new "restoration centre of expertise."
The new Pacific Salmon Commercial Transition Program is also expected to provide harvesters with the option to retire their licenses at fair market value, helping to create a smaller commercial harvesting sector, Ottawa has said.
In June, the federal government announced the closure of about 60 per cent of commercial salmon fisheries for this season. It said recreational fisheries would also be restricted where commercial closures were in place to conserve stocks.
However, Greg Taylor, an independent consultant who advises the B.C.-based non-profit Watershed Watch Society, said a commercial Fraser River pink salmon fishery that had been among the closures was open for several days earlier this month.
Pinks aren't "super abundant," he said in an interview, but they're not faring as poorly as the coho and steelhead that are running with them, at risk of being caught up.
The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has assessed two steelhead populations that spawn in tributaries of the Fraser as endangered and in 2018 recommended an emergency listing under the Species at Risk Act, which would trigger habitat protections, but that was declined by the federal cabinet.
A Fisheries and Oceans Canada notice posted online said the pink fishery was "designed to address stocks of concern restraints," other species were to be released unharmed and observers were required, though Taylor said salmon fisheries tend to need better observation to ensure threatened fish aren't disturbed.
Taylor said Fisheries and Oceans indicated there would be meaningful consultation with stakeholders in salmon harvesting ahead of further changes, so the opening of the pink fishery "undermines (his) confidence" in the rest of Ottawa's new strategy.
Fisheries and Oceans did not respond to questions about the opening of the pink fishery and the new strategy that's still being developed in time for publication.
Commercial harvesters should be fairly compensated for retiring their licenses, Taylor added. But he believes the full $647 million allocated to the salmon strategy should go toward conserving and restoring salmon populations, while the money Ottawa would need to buy out licenses should come from somewhere else.
"The last time we did a major buy back, it cost over $250 million in 2021 dollars. I'm not saying it's going to be that much anymore, but you take $50 or $100 million out of the $647 (million) to start compensating commercial fishers, that weakens it."
Ned said his top priority is to see funding allocated through true government-to-government relationships with First Nations, in accordance with B.C.'s 2019 law adopting the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.
They need to be part of decision-making over funding requirements and how projects to support salmon recovery are implemented in their territories, he said.
While many Indigenous groups have received money for projects under the B.C. salmon restoration fund, for example, so have many non-profit organizations that Ned said are still learning how to work with First Nations.
In addition to the new Pacific salmon strategy, the federal government has adopted a 2018-22 implementation plan for its Wild Salmon Policy established in 2005.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 26, 2021.
It was a typical Tuesday for Mabel Beharrell, 84, until she got the call that would turn her world upside down. Her teenaged grandson was in trouble and needed her help.
The deaths of four people on a farm near the Saskatchewan village of Neudorf have been confirmed a murder-suicide.
Genetic analysis has shed light on a long-standing mystery surrounding the fates of U.S. President George Washington's younger brother Samuel and his kin.
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is officially selling a copy of the Bible themed to Lee Greenwood’s famous song, 'God Bless the USA.' But the concept of a Bible covered in the American flag has raised concern among religious circles.
The Parole Board of Canada has granted full parole to one of three men convicted in the brutal murders of three McDonald's restaurant workers in Cape Breton more than 30 years ago.
Rainfall warnings of up to 90 millimetres and other alerts have been issued for six Canadian provinces, according to the latest forecasts.
Ontario released its annual sunshine list Thursday afternoon, noting that the largest year-over-year increases were in hospitals, municipalities, and post-secondary sectors.
A bus carrying worshippers headed to an Easter festival plunged off a bridge on a mountain pass and burst into flames in South Africa on Thursday, killing at least 45 people, authorities said.
Calgary police have shut down a number of bridges into and out of the downtown core as officers deal with a distraught individual.
B.C. conservation officers recently seized a nine-foot-long Burmese python from a home in Chilliwack.
A New Brunswicker will go to bed Thursday night much richer than he was Wednesday after collecting on a winning lottery ticket he let sit on his bedroom dresser for nearly a year.
The Ontario government is introducing changes to auto-insurance, but some experts say the move is ill-advised.
A Toronto restaurant introduced a surprising new rule that reduced the cost of a meal and raised the salaries of staff.
Newfoundland’s unique version of the Pine Marten has grown out of its threatened designation.
A Toronto man is out $12,000 after falling victim to a deepfake cryptocurrency scam that appeared to involve Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
It started small with a little pop tab collection to simply raise some money for charity and help someone — but it didn’t take long for word to get out that 10-year-old Jace Weber from Mildmay, Ont. was quickly building up a large supply of aluminum pop tabs.
There’s a group of people in Saskatoon that proudly call themselves dumpster divers, and they’re turning the city’s trash into treasure.
Ontario is facing a larger than anticipated deficit but the Doug Ford government still plans to balance its books before the next provincial election.