Sydney lawyer appointed to Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board
Damien Barry was appointed to the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board on Feb. 8. (Louisbourg Seafoods photo)
Nova Scotia’s minister of fisheries and aquaculture has appointed a new member to the Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board.
Damien Barry, a lawyer in Sydney and CAO and general counsel for Louisbourg Seafoods, was appointed Feb. 8, according to the government’s website listing members of agencies, boards and commissions.
Barry is originally from Ennis, Ireland. A former family and immigration lawyer with Sampson McPhee Lawyers in Sydney, he was hired by Louisbourg Seafoods in December 2018.
Louisbourg Seafoods is owned by Jim and Lori Kennedy, who started the business in 1984. It deals in snow crab, redfish, northern shrimp, lobster, sea cucumber and blue mussels.
Barry contributed $250 to Liberal candidate Marc Botte in the 2019 byelection in Sydney River-Mira-Louisbourg, according to an Elections Nova Scotia candidate disclosure statement.
In an interview with QCCR last week, Agriculture Minister Greg Morrow, who was acting fisheries and aquaculture minister while Kent Smith was out of the country, did not know if another member would be appointed to the board to replace Jean McKenna, who left the board in mid-February.
The review board’s website has not been updated with Barry as a member.
A screengrab of the list of Nova Scotia Aquaculture Review Board members on the Nova Scotia government website.
McKenna was one of the first three members appointed to the review board in 2017 by the then-Liberal government. She had been its first and only chairwoman until her term expired earlier this month.
She was replaced as chair by Tim Cranston, a lawyer who ran unsuccessfully for the Tories in Halifax Atlantic in the last provincial election.
Nova Scotia Premier Tim Houston said last week that there was nothing inappropriate in Cranston’s appointment as chairman. He said McKenna’s term had expired and the board needed a new chair.
The review board was scheduled to begin hearings March 4 into an application from Kelly Cove Salmon, owned by Cooke Aquaculture, to expand its fish farms in Liverpool Bay. Kelly Cove wants to expand its current operation near Coffin Island off Beach Meadows Beach to 20 pens from 14, and add trout to the salmon already farmed there. And it wants to add 40 new pens at two sites off Brooklyn and Mersey Point. It would mean more than 1.8 million salmon and trout being produced, compared
Groups involved in the hearing were surprised when they were sent a “high priority” email from review board clerk Stacy Bruce on Feb. 20, telling them McKenna was no longer with the board and that the March hearing dates would be cancelled.
Along with Kelly Cove Salmon, five groups were granted intervenor status at the hearings: Protect Liverpool Bay, the Region of Queens, the Brooklyn Marina, 22 Lobster Fishermen of Liverpool Bay, and Kwilmu’kw Maw-Klusuaqn, which is representing the Acadia First Nation.
Jamie Simpson of Juniper Law, who is representing the lobster fishermen group, said it’s unusual that “a decision maker who has been significantly part of the process” would leave on the eve of the hearings.
“It’s no small feat to get several days in a row scheduled among the diverse parties here, so it’s a challenge,” Simpson said in an interview last week. “When they had the March dates nailed down it was an accomplishment and to see them cancelled now it’s a shock.”
Houston and Queens MLA and Public Works Minister Kim Masland have both spoken against the planned expansion. At a business luncheon in Liverpool on Feb. 7, the premier said that while supports aquaculture in Nova Scotia, he was personally opposed to more fish farming in Liverpool Bay.
In an email Monday, board clerk Sayeed Maswod told QCCR to “visit the regularly updated NSARB website for all information related to hearings.”
The review board has been mum on when the hearings will begin, but Simpson told QCCR that dates set for April 2 to 5 at the Best Western Plus in Liverpool are still a go.
Email: rickconradqccr@gmail.com