First Dollar

First Dollar claims to be a grassroots organisation campaigning to support local employment in British colombia. The First Dollar website is, though, registered to fish farming industry spin doctor Leanne Brunt using her Panfish email address

Spinning Farmed Salmon

According to Spinning Farmed Salmon:

Both Jensen and Leanne Brunt of the SPAA are active in an organisation called First Dollar. The registrant of the SPAA internet domain name (www.farmfreshsalmon.org), Rudy Vandermey, is also a member of First Dollar. According to its website First Dollar exists:

to challenge misinformation and counter the misinformation and boycotts directed at BC resource industries and families, to educate British Columbians about the connection between resource industries and the service industry they generate, to encourage participation of resource workers and supporters throughout resource based communities, to facilitate networking outside and within all sectors of resource industry and to provide social networking and support’

First Dollar also claims to be a ‘grassroots’ organisation. Part of its mission is to ‘encourage individuals and companies in resource based communities to educate the public and the media about the importance of resource industries to the entire province’.

In Brunt’s campaigning with First Dollar, she is portrayed as a self sacrificing single mother supporting local industry, whose energy and drive attract media attention most ‘ordinary’ citizens couldn’t. The Vancouver Sun reported a dispute in the BC area over closure of a local mill in July 2004: ‘Resource towns fight back against arriviste rock stars’. It noted that performers Neil Young and Randy Bachman played a fundraising concert to support emissions testing from the mill and the assessment of dangers posed to the local environment and community. According to the Vancouver Sun, unlike the celebrities, ‘Ms. Brunt doesn’t have a publicist – not many single moms working in aquaculture do’. The fact is that Brunt is herself a professional publicist. In addition to being the founder of First Dollar and founder and Vice President of the SPAA, she is also employed by the PR firm Greenspirit Strategies Ltd and is internal communications manager for Panfish Canada. Panfish is a Norwegian based multinational and the biggest fish farming company in the world. The First Dollar website is registered to Leanne Brunt and the contact email is her Panfish account, suggesting something more than a grassroots initiative.

See also

• Greenspirit Strategies
• Patrick Moore
• Salmon of the Americas
• Scottish Quality Salmon
• Society for the Positive Awareness of Aquaculture