PLEASE DISTRIBUTE THIS ACTION ALERT
AND SPEAK OUT FOR THE WHALES!!!
It is VERY important that you, your friends and your family participate in the Monday night Park Board meeting - because it's our last chance to try to stop the Aquarium expansion.
On Monday night, the park commissioners will decide and vote on whether the Vancouver Aquarium can expand the whale and dolphin tanks and bring more cetaceans to Stanley Park. As well, the Park Board is considering approving a new loophole in the Park Bylaw that would allow the Aquarium to import whales and dolphins that they claim were "rescued" in other countries.
Please sign up to speak at this meeting. All you have to say is that you are against the proposed Aquarium expansion and the proposed changes to the Park Bylaw. One sentence is all the commissioners need to hear to count you as a NO vote that night.
Every speaker counts, and the Aquarium is planning on bringing their staff and volunteers by the busload to speak at the Park Board.
PLEASE phone the Park Board offices at 604-257-8451 before Monday Nov. 27 at Noon to register to speak!!!
Monday, November 27, 2006, 5:00pm (show up late, that's OK)
Hastings Community Centre
3096 East Hastings Street, Vancouver
--------------------------- FOR YOUR INFORMATION ---------------------
1 --- Attached is a flyer/Jpeg No Whales In Captivity regarding the Aquarium 2006 Poll. Please forward and/or print out copies to distribute.
2 --- Zoocheck Canada's 2003 poll results regarding whales in captivity in Vancouver:
http://www.zoocheck.com/programs/marine/vancouver/poll.shtml
3 --- The Aquarium's public relations campaign can be found in http://www.vanaqua.org/consultation
4 --- The Park Board By-law staff report recommending changes in favour of the Aquarium. See particularly item 2 "Amendment to the Parks Control By-Law ..." and Appendix 2 and 3. The appendices show the question "e" that Synovate asked about bringing in any injured animal, and the poll results for that question. The staff report recommends "that the Bylaw remain the same for Sections 9 (e, i-iii), and be revised for (iv) to provide for importation with intention to release or not to release". http://www.vancouver.ca/parks/board/2006/061127/index.htm
5 --- BACKGROUNDER ON AQUARIUM EXPANSION OF WHALE POOLS, REFERENDUMS AND THE PARK BYLAW
To build the Vancouver Aquarium in the 50s, the Aquarium received free land in Stanley Park, plus $75,000 from the federal government (DFO), $75 000 from the provincial government, and $75,000 from the City of Vancouver totaling $225,000.
In the 60s when the Aquarium wanted to build orca tanks, again they asked the three levels of government for grants, as well as more of Stanley Park, The federal and provincial governments both agreed to grant the Aquarium $100,000, if the City of Vancouver went along. That's when the mayor of Vancouver realizing how controversial the issue was, decided to hold a referendum vote. According to Murray Newman’s book “Life in a fishbowl”, the Aquarium lost the referendum, but the city clerk, decided to count the spoiled ballots in favour of the Aquarium, and that’s how the Aquarium “won” the referendum and got $300,000 from the governments to build the whale pools.
The issue remains controversial and the confusion again started when the Aquarium mentioned in the media in 1995, that the Aquarium was planning on requesting more park land from the Park Board again. The Park Board commissioners of the day immediately passed a motion that if the Aquarium officially requested more park land, it would be sent to a civic referendum.
In order to avoid another referendum (last and only one was in the 60s and obviously it scared the hell out of the Aquarium), the Aquarium instead proposed to the Park Board that the government conduct a public consultation process. But that didn't go at all like the Aquarium expected, because after the Park Board heard from thousands of people, they voted unanimously to enact a bylaw that would stop the importation of whales and dolphins and force a gradual phase out..
The Aquarium threatened the Park Board with a lawsuit if the Bylaw did not include 4 clauses that act as loopholes to this day, allowing the Aquarium to continue doing business as usual. That's why the bylaw was signed in Nov. 1996, but the cut-off date for wild dolphins imports is Sept.16, 1996.
So the Aquarium had a bad experience with the only city wide referendum held in 1960s. Then trying to avoid another referendum, the Aquarium pushed the Park Board to conduct public consultations in the 90s and that resulted in a bylaw the Aquarium never expected and that they had to lobby hard to amend to include the loopholes.
So this time, the Aquarium thought that all bases were covered.
First, the Aquarium runs a staff member in the civic elections, wins, and places her as the Chair of the Park Board. Then to avoid any pesky referendums, Commissioner Marty Zlotnik proposes a motion to delete from the Park Board books two resolutions that tied the Aquarium’s hands: one is the 1995 motion to send any request for expansion to a public referendum vote; and the other is a motion that promised Vancouverites a referendum vote on the issue of whales in captivity in the upcoming civic elections of 2008. The motion passes and the Aquarium promises to pay to hold public consultation to determine public sentiment towards their new proposal to expand whale pools and bring more whales to Stanley Park.
Then the Aquarium tries to become "partners" with the Park Board to make sure the survey they pay for has any credibility. But in steps Denis Howarth, legal consultant to the Coalition For No Whales In Captivity, and he embarrasses the PB commissioners into dropping the proposed “joint-partnership” with the Aquarium by warning them that it would be corrupt for them to have anything to do with the private consultation. There's the Aquarium left standing alone. Not in a million years did they expect that.
No problem, the Aquarium decides its marketing machine can handle it, so they go ahead and hold their own consultation process, even after Commissioner Ian Robertson, the only commissioner to vote in favour of the partnership, says the aquarium survey would have no credibility!
Immediately, before the Aquarium’s public relations firm even holds one public consultation meeting, the Aquarium is busy announcing to the media that the results of their survey will show 80-90% support for the proposed aquarium expansion. True enough, after a month of consulting some people, the Aquarium proudly announces that 89% of Vancouver wants to see bigger whale pools and more whales in Stanley Park and that we are happy to spend $80 million of taxpayers money to build them.
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Please come to the Monday night meeting, even if you arrive late. Sign up to speak and tell the Park Board Commissioners that as elected officials it is their duty to allow Vancouverites to have a say on this issue and hold a public referendum vote in the upcoming elections, as we were promised.
IF YOU DON'T HELP THE WHALES, WHO WILL?
See you at the Park Board meeting!!!
Annelise Sorg NO WHALES IN CAPTIVITY www.nowhalesincaptivity.org
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