Evidence of meeting #5 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was commission.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Wallace and Ms. Tessaro, for coming. I appreciate the information. I think that's primarily what we're here for today, so that we understand what your work is and how it might affect ours. But also, primarily, we want to know what's going to be happening there as the commission does its work.
I assume you've got a fair number of staff already. Can you just tell me what the structure is?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
Certainly. We have an administrative staff of half a dozen, policy counsel who is a lawyer, and I'm the senior commission counsel. There are then three associate commission counsel who will have direct hearing preparation responsibility, as will I, and we have four junior counsel who are assisting both with the legal research and with the hearing preparation.
We also have a fisheries research consultant who is putting together the scientific research, which will be done not in-house but by academics and others with expertise on a contract basis rather than as a full-time commitment.
We are just in the process of establishing a science advisory panel, which will work with the fisheries research advisor on scoping out that research, reviewing it, and being part of a peer-review process in that.
So that's the complement.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Just help me to make sure I understand what “standing” means and how it relates to the more general notion of participation. When someone applies for standing and let's say they're given standing, that gives them the right to participate in all the evidentiary hearings by way of cross-examination and so on. Am I correct so far?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
That's absolutely correct. This is not like a court case. It's an inquiry, and all evidence will be put before the inquiry by commission counsel. So because you are a participant doesn't mean you have a right to call witnesses. The process is controlled a little more than that.
We will seek the input from participants on whom they think we should be calling as witnesses, because our job is to get all the relevant facts before the commission. We don't have a point of view here.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
So by participant you mean this group of people that have standing?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
We've defined the word “participant” to be the people with standing.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Will these participants, those who have standing, also give evidence? Are they witnesses as well as participants?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
I think it is quite likely that probably not all, but some participants will provide witnesses we will call.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
They will suggest witnesses but they themselves will not--
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
The applicants for participation tend to be organizations or groups, as opposed to individuals. There are a couple of exceptions, but I'm sure we will have representatives of the participants as witnesses.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Of these 49 or so applications--and I realize no decision has been made on those yet--you've said it's a broad cross-section. Is that the case, or are they mostly environmental NGOs, for example? You've mentioned 20 first nations out of 49, if I heard that right. So do we find industry...?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
I can tell you by broad categories that we have representatives of a number of different commercial fishery groups, including the union involved in the fisheries. Among the first nations it's not just individual first nations but also associations of first nations. There is the fisheries secretariat and various groups from that community but who represent the members of more than one first nation. We have representatives of the aquaculture industry who have applied for standing. The Province of British Columbia has applied for standing. Industrial users have also applied and a number of NGOs and environmental groups.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
I have just a couple more questions, then if I have some time I'll pass it over to my colleague Mr. Weston.
The Pacific Salmon Commission themselves, do they have standing?
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Is there any American involvement that we expect in the process?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
I don't know the answer to that, but certainly I hear a lot of research has been done in the U.S. involving the same fishery, and I wouldn't be surprised to find witnesses from the U.S.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
And for my last question, obviously you don't expect things to grind to a halt while the commission is doing its business, and there is going to be a run of some kind this year and so on. But also, let's say an organization like Simon Fraser University, or even the Pacific Salmon Commission, should decide to hold a kind of science-based forum to try to answer some of these questions themselves. What would the commission's participation be in that?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
Well, Simon Fraser is doing that next weekend. Three members of the commission are going to be there.
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
Attending. Our fisheries research adviser and two of our junior counsel, who also have post-doctoral science degrees, will be there as well.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
Okay, good. Thank you very much.
Mr. Weston.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
Thank you.
Merci, monsieur le président.
It's no coincidence that three of your first questioners are from B.C. I think it's safe to say that this is going to be a very high-profile process in British Columbia, and we wish you great success. Since we're dedicated to the preservation of the fisheries, we hope that there will some good results that come out of it.
As you've been clear, we don't know what the results are. One of the things that could happen is it could become a plebiscite on aquaculture. There are so many people in British Columbia certainly contacting MPs' offices on that issue.
Have you given any thought to what the inquiry is not, as opposed to what it is?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
Well, it's not about anything but Fraser River sockeye. Now, that may well mean it is about some issues that are more general than that, as long as they have a relationship to the Fraser River sockeye, among others.
Conservative
John Weston Conservative West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC
I think it is safe to say that as opposed to other committees on the Hill, this is one that tends to have had a history of being not terribly partisan but dedicated to that task of preserving the fisheries.
I'm wondering, is the litigious nature of the forum, the fact that there's a judge who has subpoena powers, and lawyers—a profession in which I participate myself, or at least did—going to help or hinder, do you think, the gathering of evidence in terms of the overall objective here?
Senior Commission Counsel, Cohen Commission
Perhaps it's the best of all worlds, in the fact that the commission does have the power to require people to give evidence. On the other hand, all of the evidence will be put in, at first instance, by the commission itself. Our job is to get as much information properly before the commissioner as we can in the public interest.
We don't have any point of view to bring to this, in terms of any one part of the community or another. I think a lot of that will fall to us to create an atmosphere where it's an inquiry rather than, as we lawyers say, a lis. It's not a contest between two parties but rather a seeking after the truth and learning what we can.