ELH & Recruitment dynamics of Sicydium punctatum (CJFAS 52: 1535-1545 & 54: 1668-1681).

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On Nov. 28 the Minister of Fisheries announced that Cabinet had decided to go against Cosewic's advice and deny the Listing of 3 'populations' of Atlantic Cod.

         * http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/media/newsrel/2005/sara_e.htm

Attached is [[this document]] a document with my concerns and comments, to be filed in respect of the Minister's announcement. These are dated Jan. 08, 2006, which is two days prior to the expiration of the 30 day period following the Gazetting date given, Dec. 10 2005.

 

This letter is at least the fourth I have written to Cabinet and Government regarding the Listing process, both in general and as it applies to Cod.

It is almost as though 'consultation' were doublespeak for 'provide an empty hall where all opposition can voice its concerns and be ignored'.

If 'consultation' is to have any proper meaning, then there must be a reasoned analysis of the consultation that lists each concern raised and deals with it. That has not been done. As well, there is no indication of whether letters written in each episode of consultation or on each topic are sensibly collated so long as they bear on a decision, or whether each new episode of consultation is merely a tool for flushing away all previous letters.

 

This and my previous letters have shown how the process has been deliberately flawed, and how those flaws have gone against Listing, and how they have helped generate unsound objections against Listing.

My letters have invited question or rebuttal, and have a asked for proper action if my arguments could not be rebutted. The only responses have been one vacuous reply from one David Anderson (and it shamefully turns out it was written or approved by the agency that was the subject of the complaint), and an equally vacuous sloppily prepared (no reference to my letter date, etc.) reply from a DFO staffer who clearly had no wish to engage with any of the topics, ignored all but one and sidestepped that.

Therefore, as pointed out in my letter 20050603 to Cabinet, the issues raised stood uncontested. That obligated Cabinet to either deal with them or accept them, but neither was done, so the recent announcement of an arbitrary decision is therefore an abdication of responsibility on many levels.

 

If decisions are arbitrary and unaccountable, democracy is meaningless. Certainly, conservation is not possible if reason is denied a role.

 

Species should be listed according to the Cosewic assessment, simply because it reflects, and indeed in law is mandated to reflect, our best official stab at the truth of this kind of conservation question.

Cosewic is of course flawed, but in this case those flaws have gone in the direction against Listing (those flaws were detailed in my letter to PM Chretien April 28 2000 and to PM Martin June 03 2005), and therefore cannot be used to argue that a Listing is not necessary.

Where Listing creates problems, there should be tools in SARA to provide solutions other than the clumsy method of simply sidestepping a Listing. If SARA has problems, fix them; don't use them as excuses to avoid recognising facts and attending to the problems they indicate.

 

The venerable C.P. Snow, physicist, author, and adviser to Churchill's government during World War II, explained why governments make bad decisions:

"One of the most bizarre features of any advanced industrial society in our time is that the cardinal choices have to be made by a handful of men: in secret: and, at least in legal form, by men who cannot have a first-hand knowledge of what those choices depend upon or what their results may be." [1]

Effectively, the nominal decision-makers are susceptible to manipulation, and secrecy lets it happen. Then things snowball. Cod is a case in point.

 

Cabinet's decision to deny a Listing of Atlantic Cod, while politically unsurprising, is an error in grand terms. It is a disappointment for conservation and recovery of Atlantic Cod, and -- more profoundly -- for democracy. It demolishes the idea of responsible governance based on an accountable process based in reason.

Cabinet's justification, given in the Minister's awkward statement to CBC^[2], seems deceitful. His claim "the science indicates [cod] ... not in danger of extinction" untruthfully ignored Cosewic's assessments that legally are Government's key source of scientific information on extinction risk, and those said the opposite. He also said "government's been hearing very strongly from the liberal members of parliament for NL that we should not be listing the cod", showing Cabinet's decision was explicitly political, being based more on "Liberal MPs" opinions than the Cosewic assessment. Firstly, that is a clear breach of the spirit of the SARA legislation. Secondly, the "Liberal MPs' " opinions were in any case un-reasoned and largely orchestrated by a manipulated process and a virtual tradition of rules made to be broken. They played us like harps.

Cabinet was shown[3] how the process was manipulated, the public was deceived[4], public money was wasted[5], rules were broken[6], and opportunities[7] of clear public value were thrown away. Effectively, the Cosewic process was a sham[8], the consultation processes[9] were a sham. Although Cabinet has an obligation to maintain the integrity of governance, it steadfastly turned a blind eye[10] to issues directly submitted to it³; just didn't want to know.

Cosewic's assessment itself was constrained to virtually sabotage[11] the Listing. That constraint, a lumping together¹¹ of multiple populations not all at the same risk level, predictably generated objections in consultations[12]. A pollster's dream two-step: generate objections, then harvest objections. The objections seem to have been milked if they supported denial of Listing, and otherwise disregarded as completely as if they were put in the garbage¹³. Cabinet's use of 'consultations' following the Cosewic process was thus a sham. The only indication of the results of all the consultations is a 3-paragraph summary on a SARA registry page[13]. The summary is tellingly inadequate: the only sensible way to deal with inputs (whether objection or support) is on their merits, not on their numbers, but in that summary the merits were not acknowledged, let alone discussed.

Let's take a closer look at the summary:

"Thousands of individuals[a] ... overwhelmingly opposed the listing ... Reasons given for this position included the impacts of closing directed and bycatch fisheries[b], concerns with the COSEWIC process[c], and that SARA is not a suitable tool for managing aquatic species[d]" ¹³

[a] These processes were billed as consultation, not plebiscite. Therefore, a simple count of objections is irrelevant. That is all the more true if they're questionable.

[b] These fishery objections are questionable precisely because they arise from DFO's strategy of lumping populations together. Firstly, the directed fishery issue is a red herring because if the assessment had been done properly, population by population, then there'd be few cases where anyone wanted a fishery on an endangered population (and if they did, that would the time for leadership to show its face). Secondly, the bycatch issue is by no means a certain problem according to the Government of Canada: see the Guide[14] which says "fishermen may be given a permit allowing the by-catch of endangered or threatened fish under certain circumstances." So these objections are nothing but the music of bureaucrats playing us like harps.

[c] "concerns with the Cosewic process" is (i) vague and (ii) very likely addresses the problem of population-lumping in an Assessment designed to provoke the 'fishery' objections. Why not address that problem? It's fair to observe that, as Cabinet had many chances to address the deficiencies of Cosewic yet did nothing, the use of those deficiencies to achieve a political objective is cynical at best.

[d] "SARA not a suitable tool" -- well, if you believe that, and if Cabinet was halfway sincere about SARA to begin with, why not amend SARA? After all, I have explained to Cabinet on several occasions how to do that. But, as Cabinet had many chances to address the deficiencies of SARA yet did nothing, the use of those deficiencies to achieve a political objective begins to look like a plan.

Cabinet has been shown how the very structure of SARA makes for difficulties and ridiculousnesses. There is no logical step-by-step process that first yields an estimate of a problem, then sets targets for correcting the problem, then proceeds to identifying and implementing means to achieve those targets. Instead, SARA is a mess. It ties Listing to rigid Prohibitions that have already been used by Cabinet Ministers⁴ to sabotage a Listing; then it gives Cabinet the authority to make the final decision. A judge cannot determine on a case where he has an interest; likewise, Cabinet, once it had given itself the power of decision, should not have joined a campaign one way or another. But Cabinet lobbied⁴ the public, acting in conflict of interest. Minister Regan's own department is DFO, the bureaucracy of which (i) was responsible for the collapse of Cod in the first place[15], and (ii) worked consistently against a Cosewic Listing; but Minister Regan is also a key member of CESCC[16], so SARA is set up to give the interested party a role in judgement on a matter in which he has an interest. In naive confirmation of this highly questionable structure (built into SARA, which therefore is also a sham), Cabinet chose to let the DFO Minister, Minister Regan, announce Cabinet's decision on the Cod Listing; but Listing is a SARA matter and therefore should have been announced by the Environment Minister (or did Dion wisely refuse?).

Cabinet needs to now recognise there was an improper bureaucratic campaign against a Listing, needs to act with proper regard to reason in the process, and to make a decision that is not tainted by all that has been wrongly done in it so far. If Cabinet inexorably executes the plans of the bureaucracy that caused the problem in the first place, the tail wags the dog.

It has also been explained³ to Cabinet what opportunities are brought by a Listing (a proper Listing, not the DFO-Cosewic lumped-together one). Cabinet needs to secure those opportunities on an urgent timetable. In short, as detailed in a letter to Cabinet[17]: the undesirable consequences of a Listing substantially fall away if the Listing is based on identifiable populations, which firstly should be recognised as an inshore and an offshore group[18]. The offshore group, if (as is likely) the science leads to an assessment that it is Endangered or worse, should be Listed as soon as possible. It should not take more than 30 days because substantial data are there. Then, that Listing should be then used as forcefully as possible to help deal decisively with foreign overfishing. Next, the inshore group will likely be one to several populations, each of which should be separately assessed and Listed accordingly, and whichever of them is not found to merit an at-risk Listing would then need proper management that would ensure their continued ability to sustainably support fishing with the target for all being recovery to support their historic sustainable levels that for all populations in 2j3kl once totalled about 200,000 tonnes annually.

If Cabinet does not do those things, then SARA and Cabinet's handling of it is a sham and a failure, with Canada's long-term interests sacrificed to protect a handful of miscreant bureaucrats, and revision is needed. SARA needs amendment in line with reasoned input from 640 scientists who petitioned[19] against political control of the process in 1999. It makes no sense for Cabinet to deny a fact, and certainly not on the basis of argument to the consequences (in this case even the consequences the Minister cited were rigged and need not follow on a Listing). Furthermore, SARA should not contain inflexible Prohibitions that make it unworkable and even (as we have seen) provide the means of self-sabotage; instead SARA should mandate conservation targets, and an open, scrutable, and accountable process of consultatively and logically identifying and implementing the means to achieve them.

The underlying worry is: if a relatively simple case goes so crooked, what's happening in all the others? Are rules made to be broken? Is Cabinet's cynicism acceptable? Is democracy no more than a system of farming votes with fertiliser?

 

I urge Cabinet to reverse this regrettable decision, to List Cod in the proper manner, and to provide proper reasoned leadership in this matter, instead of reducing decision making to a process of intrigue and manipulation that discredits our nation.

I request acknowledgement of these comments and concerns.

 

Sincerely,

      [KNIB]

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