I suspect that the fix is in with Alex Morton’s recent victory which I reported to you. In essence what happened is that the Province decided not to appeal the part of the decision saying that the federal government, not the provincial government, had exclusive jurisdiction over fish farms. They clearly did this because they didn’t want to appear the bullies they are during the last election.
Now we have Marine Harvest, the huge fish farming company from Norway deciding not to appeal the “constitutional” issue either. This has given great joy to Alex Morton and the thousands of her supporters very much including me.
Here is the “flies in the ointment” I see.
What if the Campbell government and/or Market Harvest made a deal with the federal government where the government and Marine Harvest would not fight the constitutional argument if the Federal Government agreed not to bother Marine Harvest’s fish farming interests on the west coast and assured them that they could expand their licenses and get new one’s?
What if we see a reply of the Delgamuuk case where then Premier Harcourt changed lawyers on the appeal telling their new ones to abandon a constitutional position the government of BC had initially raised? In that case the Court of Appeal, regardless of the fact that this constitutional argument had been withdrawn called upon the government’s previous lawyers nevertheless to argue this point. In short, what if the BC Court of Appeal says “we don’t care that this issue has been withdrawn we want to hear argument anyway?
I smell a rat.
