Sugar Inquiry Not Sure About Recording Sessions

The commission will play a similar role to other commissions of inquiry that have been held. O’Brien explained that this body also has a great deal of authority and will conduct its business the same way other commissions have. What these commissioners are not certain about, however, is whether they will record the sessions. O’Brien explained the reason for this.

Hugh O’Brien, Lead Coordinator, Sugar Industry Commission of Inquiry

The commissioners will be calling people just as happen in other commissions of inquiry, will be calling people to come forward, will specifically tell them what information they need for them to bring along and can make requests for additional information. I am saying that, so we expect as much collaboration as possible from all the parties involved. But I will say that indeed there has been a press release by BSI in particular to say that there is certain information that they consider proprietary and that they do not intend to discuss or share. I’m hoping that, based on the recent work I did with BSI, which I did have access to a great deal of proprietary information that helped to clear up and sort out some of the issues that had plagued the industry, that caused the protests back in January – I’m hoping that BSI would be a bit more open and realize that at the end of the day, the idea is to reflect on the numbers. It gives them – a sense of confidence will come their way if they share the information, because then if they don’t share people think that there was something that they got to hide, and that only creates more skepticism and does create more chaos in the industry. In terms of the recording of the sessions that matter would be we’re not extremely clear yet. If you will record or all the sessions are just record some or there are some concerns amongst some commissioners that they went when we ask people certain questions if we are recording that we may not get the full insights that they may want to offer because it’s being recorded. So we will deliberate on that specific topic a bit more in our next meeting.