An open letter the prime minister of Canada:
Dear prime minister Stephen Harper,
I am writing my first time ever letter to a prime minister. I’m appealing to the highest level in the land. We need your government to help us here on the West Coast with our serious halibut allocation issue.
Our little community of 8,000 has suffered several recent disasters and yet another is looming.
Our Methanex methanol plant closed, then our West Fraser pulp and paper mill closed and now our sports fishery may completely be ruined by halibut closures.
Please help! Our homes are now nearly worthless, some people are walking away from mortgages and many citizens are wishing they could be somewhere else.
Please help keep some jobs and prosperity here by keeping a healthy recreational fishing sector. It is important for the local economy and the spirit of our town.
The possibility of having fishing close on July 1 seems so unjust and unfair to us - summer is just starting then.
More sharing of the resource is needed. Commercial fishers taking 88 per cent of the resource is too much.
Again, we are counting on you and your government to correct this injustice.
I was hoping to fish with my son and young grandchildren during the summer. And what will ever happen to one of Kitimat’s biggest events, the Labour Day fish derby?
We have a looming disaster here which can be prevented by you and your government.
We are counting on you.
Walter D. Thorne
(Retired in Kitimat)