Absolutely not. The meeting took place on October 30, 2003. There were two managers at the meeting, and she flew over. It was unprecedented for an executive to basically remove a junior-level technical person, which I was, with the Ministry of the Environment at the time. We had this hour-long meeting and she finally said, “Look, there's nothing wrong with your science. We're just removing you from your position because the eastern MLAs don't like what you have to say.” The issues I was dealing with were basically twofold: one was large-scale flood plain development, which is tied into the Fraser River habitat issues as well; and the other was Fraser River gravel removal.
The whole ministry knew about it after some time, and to be “Marvinized”.... “Marvinization” is a term for a person being removed from government because they're trying to do their job. What I have to say is one person like me is not necessarily right. You can't have one person understanding the whole gamut of technical issues, but to basically squash open debate and open technical and scientific discourse leaves Canadians, in my view, with a black hole. We've been referred to as third world in terms of our habitat protection by people from outside of the country, and basically on the recognizance of some of my descriptions of fish habitat management.
So from my perspective as a habitat professional, that's a very disturbing turn of events.