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Is Cohen Commission being upended?

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By SeafoodSource staff
02 May, 2012 - The federal government’s bid to make sweeping changes to the Fisheries Act has prompted an 11th-hour scramble at the CAD 26.4-million Cohen Commission, which was created by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2009 to study dramatic declines in the West Coast sockeye fishery.

Senior commission counsel Brian Wallace sent a letter to all hearing participants — including governments, industry, First Nations, and environmentalists — late last week asking them to submit by May 14 their views on how the budget bill affects their previous positions on the state of B.C.’s top fishery.

The letter was in response to the Conservative government's tabling of a 431-page omnibus budget-implementation bill that includes Fisheries Act amendments which would, according to critics, “gut” key provisions to protect fisheries habitat.

Justice Bruce Cohen’s commission published a technical report in February 2011 that described the federal legislation's habitat-protection provisions, first established in 1976, as “Canada's primary legislative tool” and an “effective backbone” to protect sockeye habitat.

Click here to read the full story from Postmedia News >

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