Fisheries committee  I'll back up just to say that, specifically, with that kind of quote there was a story in theVancouver Sun, published around 2014, by Larry Pynn. He had interviewed some people and the chair of the Fraser Valley Watersheds who suggested that was what he was seeing on the landscap

Fisheries committee  I go back a bit to what Dr. Favaro has said. It's hard to know how the minister interprets that. Certainly, the public interest of the concept is very common in Canadian law generally; and at both the federal and provincial levels it's a concept in national security, in environme

Fisheries committee  No, only actus reus.

Fisheries committee  I don't see how.

Fisheries committee  I agree that as a general principle, clarifying the law usually means it's easier to prove actus reus, all things being equal, but I guess there are a couple of points that I think need to be made on that point. The first, of course, referring back to Mr. Sopuck's invocation of S

Fisheries committee  I used to practice, for six years.

Fisheries committee  Yes. Before 2013, I did work alongside other legal services members in prosecuting a metal mining effluent regulation charge.

Fisheries committee  In terms of all the slides, figures 1, 2, and 3 are based on annual reports issued by DFO, so they apply across the board and they go back to 2001, 2002. For the information on slide 9, what I had to do—because again, there is no registry right now for Fisheries Act authorization

Fisheries committee  In a letter I sent to the committee on September 22 of this year, I encouraged the committee, before it starts its review, to task DFO with an audit of all current section 35 authorizations or a random selection of them, and to also go out into the watershed and do the exact asse

Fisheries committee  I would just echo that I think that's exactly right. This is part of my brief, with class authorizations and regulated standards for those projects that have been pre-assessed and identified as posing a low risk. You know, the “carry on” type of thing. Notify DFO so that DFO know

Fisheries committee  I'll jump in with one quick one, and I'm proud to bring this example back from Alberta. If you go to the Alberta Energy Regulator website right now, it is a very high-tech website where you can access information on applications, you can access information decisions from the Alb

Fisheries committee  Again, what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. It's not possible to show in the span of three years, population level impacts on any fishery resource in Canada. Again, I defer to my scientific colleagues to correct me on that. This is the point that I think the Wild

Fisheries committee  I would suggest a public registry where every authorization that DFO issues comes with a monitoring requirement, maybe not all of them, but many of them, and have that data coming. In addition to that, DFO should partner with agencies that are actually doing some of this work, w

Fisheries committee  Again, if the facts are such that there was due diligence, usually that's the work that fishery inspectors or officers will look at on the ground. I think when they make a recommendation on whether or not to charge, certainly if they think a defence of due diligence exists, then

Fisheries committee  I don't have the specifics of that case, but certainly going back to the question earlier, actus reus, mens rea, there is no mens rea requirement. But once the actus reus is proven, then the defence has the right to establish due diligence. That happens all the time.