It really is the weirdest proceeding, unlike any I've seen before.
Counsel for the Cohen Commission examining the decline of the Fraser River sockeye salmon throw up some slides of the witnesses' resumés and then begin lobbing in a few beach balls.
Sample exchange from Tuesday, when the counsel was Jennifer Chan.
Question: "Would you say there is special First Nations' knowledge?"
Answer: "Definitely." Question: "Would you say that includes ecological knowledge?"
Answer: "Oh yes. Too often our traditional knowledge is cast aside in favour of 'science.' "
I believe the witness responding was Grand Chief Saul Terry of the St'at'imx Nation, but it's hard to be sure - another quirk of this inquiry is that it hears evidence from panels of witnesses. Tuesday, there were four of them testifying as a group.
I use the word "question" only because I can't think of an alternative.
There are certainly no hard questions, as prosecutors routinely ask witnesses in courtrooms, inquests and inquiries every day across this country. There are few surprise questions, except those that may occasionally come from inquiry head and Supreme Court of B.C. Judge Bruce Cohen.
Really, there are hardly any actual questions at all, and few answers as that word is normally understood.
Instead, Chan would throw in a series of loaded or sympathetic statements, each ending on a rising interrogative note as though there was a question there, and the witnesses would then offer small speeches, as if they had "answered."
(Chan is one of four junior counsel with the commission, and I don't mean to be unduly tough on her. Patrick McGowan, one of three associate counsel, acted in much the same fashion the day before. I doubt they would conduct themselves this way if it was not the way they all, including the policy, research and senior lawyers, do business.)
The commission is this week examining the topic of "Aboriginal Fishing," and the Tuesday panel consisted of Terry, Neil Todd from the Fraser River Aboriginal Fisheries Secretariat and a consultant with the Nicola Tribal Association, and Russ Jones, a spectacularly well-educated and well-spoken policy adviser to the Haida Fisheries Program and member of the First Nations Fisheries Council and longtime member of the Pacific Salmon Commission.
The fourth member was Barry Huber, an aboriginal affairs adviser with the DFO, the still-used acronym for a federal department now called Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
In the old days, I suspect, Huber might have been known as "the government man," the one fellow who would have been expected to parrot the party, or Ottawa, line. The more alarming possibility is that perhaps he was, but certainly, some of what he had to say woke me up from my acronym-induced state of languor.
For instance, while Chan was inquiring about the 1993 Fraser Watershed Agreement and why it was that some First Nations didn't sign on, Huber said, "Some of the wording some of the First Nations didn't find acceptable and the way it was introduced - coercively, in my mind. They had to sign onto this to get AFS (Aboriginal Fishing Strategy) funds."
On the in-progress efforts to develop "co-management" strategies with First Nations, Huber said, "First Nations are interested in having a much larger say."
On the abilities of DFO versus those of First Nations: "Our own department is facing many more challenges than First Nations . . . There's a lot of capacity-building needed on our staff."
In response to a question from Brenda Gaertner, lawyer for the First Nations Coalition, Huber said, "First Nations don't feel that in a multi-disciplinary group (meaning groups which also have representatives from the sport and commercial fishermen) their views can be fairly represented, and I tend to agree with them."
And finally, when Gaertner asked if there has to be a distinction made between commercial and recreational fishing organizations and aboriginal groups, Huber said, "Well. First Nations have rights. Others don't . . . I think a lot of Canadians don't understand that."
Do they? Perhaps they don't. But if they sat in at these hearings, particularly if they weren't native but were fishermen, my hunch is they might also believe that what they were hearing and seeing was not just a changing of the guard, but also the death throes of their beloved industry.
