before:

The illegitimate consultations [main COD page]   [main SARA page]

after:

Quiz of the day:   What famous person said:
“You understand that when someone says they’re waiting for “all the facts” before they make a choice, they’re actually just avoiding a decision and hoping it will go away”
[answer below]

Lurking in a feelgood speech by the Hon. David Anderson March 03 2004 ...

Waving the Red Cape

The DFO consultations were accompanied by an information poster/handout with white print on a black banner at the top:

(top of DFO poster, their filename "Species-at-Risk-(E&F).pdf")
    Where does it say to your comments to? Superficially, it looks like you are writing to SARA:

Look at that address: it looks like it belongs to SARA, and clearly meant to; but no, it's a DFO address. That is how they had it. Can anyone claim that was an innocent mistake?
    There's even a section "Who can I contact for moreinformation about SARA?" and for Cosewic, with SARA and Cosewic addresses. The presence of those addresses tends to support the illusion that these are "SARA" consultations, although they are not.
    The way the poster is set up, it's easy to miss the fact that DFO set up the consultations. In fact a common complaint was that there were no SARA or COSEWIC people there. But they were DFO hearings!
    The Cosewic Chair (Marco Festa-Bianchet) gave a talk in April 2005, within which he moaned that COSEWIC was taking all the flak for this. (Shoulda thought of that before playing ball.) But he's an academic (U. Sherbrooke). Cosewic is tactically so outclassed by DFO, you'd think the smart thing would be to catch on. You'd think he'd maybe counter the flak by pointing out exactly how deeply DFO was involved in the Assessment; but no, that'd be admitting he'd played ball too. Outclassed.
    Speaking of tactics, I was chatting with a pleasant DFO person the other day (June 2005) and he moaned about no SARA people or COSEWIC people being at the DFO consultations. (Though that probably worked for them too.) My simple reply was "of course not: not invited, not part of the plan". He couldn't remember how the consultations had been arranged to point the objections at SARA and COSEWIC, but he didn't that it had worked out well for DFO (when you're the one that mismanaged the fishery, it's quite a feat to get all the fishermen to do what you want by getting them angry with SARA and COSEWIC). To argue against it having been engineered he offered the defence that DFO wasn't nearly smart enough to engineer all this stuff. I can see the headline: "DFO staffer advances 'dumb but lucky' hypothesis".

BACKGROUND ITEMS: 1997-8 Report: Status of Atlantic Cod (for COSEWIC)
of which the 2003 Report is an Update

COSEWIC does not want anyone to see* the 1998 Report "Status of Atlantic Cod in Canada", so it is provided here as separate html files of Report text and Report figures. (*Even the author of the 2003 Update Report says they didn't give him a copy, and says that's why, unlike other Update Reports, it does not mention the previous one.)
      This is the Report as submitted, which is distinct from the version that COSEWIC changed without permission, not the faked version they tried to make me agree to, or the whitewash they later tried to say I was asked for.

PRESS coverage of the 97-8 Report. See especially the Ottawa Citizen front-page article that preceded the 98 meeting; without that, Cosewic would probably have once more deferred the issue, as it did in 97 on a politically trumped-up procedural basis, or prevented an at-risk designation.

      Note that the 97-8 Report made its Recommendation on the basis of 10 management areas, acknowledging that these already were too large and redefinition of populations should be supported and incorporated. Note that DFO (W. Doubleday, letter to COSEWIC) itself had previously and vehemently demanded a multiple-areas treatment, and I agreed. DFO abruptly changed its mind. COSEWIC asked for no explanation of why DFO would change its mind, and accommodated DFO's revised wish for a single-unit assessment (which even COSEWIC says, in the 2003 Update, could not be a correct decision udner the information available) and yet their Chair says (2004) there were no "other inputs" in 1998 besides the Report. Clearly that means no other inputs they want to declare, and that is what they'd have to do if they released the Report, so their reason for not releasing it is also clear.
       Note that in the 2003 Update, they still did not address it at the finest scale possible, but kept it to 3 major areas (plus Arctic). Under COSEWIC's practise of modifying Reports to fit their decisions, it is not yet known whether the "3 areas" solution was imposed on the author of the 2003 Report, or whether he accepted it. Either way, any Report from COSEWIC is not guaranteed to be what SARA says it must be, i.e. the Report on which COSEWIC's decision (assessment) was based (if you changed it, it isn't what it was when you used it as input). Thus, we have to conclude that all COSEWIC assessments and released Reports are biased in the 'don't -list' direction.
      A key section in the Addendum* is DFO's shifting position on populations ... it shows the origin of DFO's one-population tactic to minimise seriousness of any Listing, the same tactic that's key to generating red-herring fears (of horrendous fines, any fishery closed down if there's bycatch). Of course, those fears are intended to generate political opposition to a Listing.
      (*Why an Addendum? COSEWIC's procedures were not scientific, did not allow for differences to be debated, did not require a Jurisdiction (e.g. DFO) to substantiate its objections, and allowed DFO to abruptly and without explanation change its mind on the key issue of whether Cod should be treated as 1 or many populations. An Addendum was the only way to make the Jursidiction (DFO) accountable for its own statements that were in bad faith, i.e. designed more to frustrate the process than contribute to it.)