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VICTORIA — Agriculture Minister Lana Popham faced new questions in the legislature Monday about her activist opposition to fish farming, following the release of some telling emails about the threat she made last fall to one of the big fish farming operators.

Popham denied all. But by the end of the exchange with several B.C. Liberal MLAs, she had no luck dispelling suspicions that this was a case where her activist roots had led her to intervene on a matter that was partly outside her ministerial bailiwick.

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The minister’s target in this case was Marine Harvest, operator of several open-net fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago, off the northern end of Vancouver Island.

In late September of last year, Alexandra Morton, a longtime critic of open-net fish farming, aired public concerns about the anticipated restocking of one of the Marine Harvest farms in the Broughton.

A few days later, Popham received a lengthy email blasting Marine Harvest and pleading with her to intervene because “you have a short window of opportunity to get ahead of this scandal.”