A River Never Sleeps

Nothing has troubled the fish farming industry on Canada’s West Coast quite like Rafe Mair, a blustering, passionate, opinionated broadcaster who over much of the past decade has been on a crusade against open net salmon farms.

Mr. Mair, a former lawyer, provincial cabinet minister and dedicated fly fisherman with a special weakness for Pacific sea-run cutthroat and New Zealand rainbows, ranted about fish farms every chance he got. His stinging criticisms of the industry, and of the government for failing to adequately regulate it, helped turn public opinion against fish farming.

Two years ago fish farmers thought their on-air thrashings were over when Mr. Mair was let go by Vancouver radio giant CKNW AM 980.

A dispute over the way he treated a fellow employee, who complained about his use of swear words, saw Mr. Mair kicked out of a sky rise office, from which he couldn’t enjoy the view of downtown Vancouver because of his fear of heights.

But Mr. Mair, who at the time was drawing 100,000 listeners every quarter hour, wasn’t silenced. He simply moved over to CKBD AM 600 – a much smaller operation that was struggling to gain audience share across town.

Mr. Mair’s move was big news in Vancouver because he was the most popular talk show host in British Columbia at the time.

In his new job he soon picked up on the themes that had worked for him at CKNW: politics, the economy, and the environment. Fish farms were soon getting royally bashed again.

Almost singlehandedly Mr. Mair has kept the controversy over fish farms at a high boil in B.C., to the point that it became an election issue in the 2005 general election, with the New Democratic Party, which eventually lost, promising to phase out open net pens if elected. Even the Liberals, a party which has actively promoted fish farming, began to have second thoughts, promising to establish a special, all-party legislative committee to review aquiculture policy. In a surprising move after the election, the Liberals agreed that that committee will be chaired by an NDP member, which appears to open the door for policy change.

Without Mr. Mair’s crusade against salmon farms, it’s likely that politicians would have ignored the issue and fish farming would have expanded widely all over the coast.

But fish farmers were given renewed hope, in October 2005, when Mr. Mair was cast adrift again. AM 600 canceled his contract with some 9 months still remaining, with Gerry Siemens, general manager of the station, saying the irreverent Mr. Mair simply wasn’t drawing a big enough audience to warrant the cost of producing the show. The station now proposes to build an audience by offering more of the dead old guy crooners, like Sinatra and well, more Sinatra.

Mr. Mair was surprised by the move, because he knew from the feedback he got that people were tuning in. And he knew it would take time to build an audience at a new, small market station like CKBD. And two years was hardly enough time.

The same week he was fired he was named to the Canadian Broadcast Hall of Fame, and the Georgia Straight, a popular weekly paper in Vancouver, had just listed him as the top talk show host in the city.

"I thought we had turned the corner," Mr. Mair said reflecting on his sudden departure.

"You know, moving 50,000 listeners every day from CKNW over to your station and trying to keep them when you are playing Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin all day long is not easy."

He didn’t have CKNW numbers at his new station, but with between 25,000 and 34,000 people tuning in, his show was probably the most popular thing about CKBD. And for those who cared about environmental issues and other current affairs it was certainly the only thing to listen to in Vancouver.

He rejects any suggestion that he might have been done in by the fish farm lobby, or by an old political enemy of his, former NDP premier Glen Clark, whom he once blocked from a talk show job at CKNW and who is now a vice-president for the Jim Pattison Group, which owns AM 600.

"You know there all sorts of conspiracy theories. I don’t subscribe to them. I never thought of that one (about Clark), but I thought of lots of others. I was getting too close to the bone on a lot of issues we were dealing with and pressure may have come from somewhere. But to be honest I’ve never seen any evidence of that and I won’t comment on it until I do," said Mr. Mair in an interview.

Mr. Mair was a lawyer in Kamloops, where he delighted in fishing the local trout lakes, and a cabinet minister in B.C.’s Social Credit government in the 1980’s (perhaps the only minister who could be found casting for sea-run cutthroat outside the provincial capital after the House rose) before jumping into the loudmouthed world of talk radio in 1981.

He shook things up in B.C. and drove fish farming issues to the top of the agenda. And he says he’s not ready to quit just yet, even though he’s 73, has bad knees and has had an emotional change of heart about fishing.

"I’m beating about the bushes for work doing some television with Channel Ten, doing some writing, but I honestly don’t know where I might end up. I don’t think there are a lot of stations that would want me, considering what they do. CBC is something I will certainly look hard at."

Question: You haven’t reached the point in your life where you want to put your feet up?

Mair: "Oh, hell no. I’ll never get there. I can’t quit. I have more energy now than when I was 30 years younger and I feel more pissed off about things. As long as I have some access to the airwaves I’ll be looking forward to it.
"I’m an old man but I sure don’t feel it."

Mr. Mair, who has contributed articles to A River Never Sleeps.com and who has written several books, has long been a passionate fly fisherman. But he acknowledged that he may have hung up his waders for good.

Question: You gave up fishing?

Mair: "It’s tough. I went through this emotional thing. You don’t want to kill them so you get into catch and release. Then these English fly fishing magazines kept saying if we are catching and releasing we are tormenting the fish and we are in exactly the same position as the fox hunters. It started to bother me. Then I had an incident I was landing a fish in the Taupo River in New Zealand. It was beautiful. A 5 lb. hen. And two other fish swam up alongside her. Right alongside. I thought, ‘Oh, Jesus, I don’t need this. What’s this? The whole family is gathering around to say good-bye?’ Then it sort of makes a virtue of necessity anyway because my knees are so damn bad that I have a hard time getting around. But I miss it. I’m looking at all my fly tying gear; as a matter of fact I’m looking at some pheasant tails right now. I’d love to go back to it but I just had this kind of emotional experience (that put me off)."

Mr. Mair said he planned to head over to England for a vacation, and to celebrate his New Year’s Eve birthday in London. Then he’d be back in B.C. to start looking for work.

He may take up fishing again. As a matter of fact, we suspect he will when we show him the pictures from the trout lake we discovered last summer. But even if he doesn’t, one thing is certain. One way or another Mr. Mair will find a way to have his voice heard. And when he does, fish farms will be in for a pummeling once again.