The Commission adjourned for today at 1:00 p.m., and in a surprise announcement, Commission Counsel Art Vertlieb then said that there would be no session on Monday, January 23, 2012, contrary to earlier indications. He apparently isn’t prepared to put a witness on the stand Monday.

Counsel presenting a case is usually expected to have witnesses lined up and ready to go so that all valuable time set aside for a hearing is used and days are not wasted.

In this hearing, the schedule continues to be very unpredictable, creating difficulties for us and other counsel.

Today, Commissioner Oppal granted a request made by Richard Peck, Q.C., one of several lawyers recently appointed to represent police witnesses, to adjourn the testimony of Peel Regional Police Deputy Chief Constable Jennifer Evans to a later date in order to enable the newly retained lawyers to prepare to ask her their questions.

For those trying to keep track of all the police lawyers and their clients, the following is our best attempt at a current list.  There may actually be more police lawyers involved than the 17 listed below:

RCMP: Cheryl Tobias, Q.C., Jan Brongers, Judith Hoffman and Andrew Majawa

Vancouver Police Department and Vancouver Police Board: Sean Hern and Tim Dickson

Vancouver Police Union: David Crossin, Q.C.

Dr. Kim Rossmo (ex-VPD): Mark Skwarok

Doug Fell (VPD): Kevin Woodall and Claire Hatcher

Don Adam (ex RCMP): Janet Winteringham, Q.C.

Gary Bass (ex RCMP): Richard Peck, Q.C.

Earl Moulton (RCMP): Ravi Hira, Q.C.

Brian McGuiness (VPD): Greg DelBigio, Q.C.

Terry Blythe and John Unger (ex VPD): Edward Greenspan, Q.C.

Brock Giles (VPD): David Butcher

Gary Greer (VPD): Rick Henderson

Peel Regional Police: Linda Bordeleau

….

Background: Attorney General Mike deJong announced the creation of the Commission on September 29, 2010 and provided terms of reference that required it to deliver a report to the government by December 31, 2011. The Commission did not commence evidentiary hearings until October 11, 2011.  The government’s deadline was later extended to June 30, 2012. The Commissioner is Wallace T. Oppal, Q.C., a former judge and Attorney General.  The Executive Director is John Boddie, a former VPD sergeant who served with the VPD for 16 years. Neil Chantler and I represent the families of 25 women who went missing and were subsequently murdered.  From our clients’ point of view, the key factual questions encompassed by the terms of reference are: 1) Why were the attempted murder and other serious charges against Robert William Pickton dropped after his attack on a Vancouver sex trade worker in 1997? and 2) Why did the VPD and RCMP, who considered Pickton a prime suspect in the disappearances of Sarah deVries and other Vancouver women from August 1998, fail to stop or apprehend him until the RCMP accidentally found evidence, on February 5, 2002, that he had murdered as many as 49 women? 

The Commission has not yet heard testimony from any police officer who was actively involved in the investigations, although former VPD geographic profiler Dr. Kim Rossmo is scheduled to appear on Tuesday, January 24, 2012.

Today, Janet L. Winteringham, Q.C. appeared at the hearing to cross-examine RCMP Superintendent Robert Williams.  Ms. Winteringham indicated that she represents Don Adam, who is not a participant with standing, but a witness expected to testify at some later date.  She proceeded with her questions for the witness after the Commissioner overruled our objection that it would be inappropriate and time-consuming to permit every interested witness or their counsel to cross-examine other witnesses.  A few minutes later we learned for the first time that Kim Rossmo will be taking the stand a week Monday, January 23, 2012.  The next of the day’s surprises arrived in the form of an email circulated at 1:46 p.m. today by Edward L. Greenspan, Q.C. advising that he planned to cross-examine the next witness, Peel Deputy Chief Evans, for two hours.  This was my first inkling that the eminent Toronto lawyer is involved in this matter at all, and I immediately sent all counsel an email asking who he is representing.  I am awaiting somebody’s response, but if I don’t get one, I guess I’ll find out next week.

As counsel representing the families of 25 murdered women before the Commission, it would be helpful if we were kept informed of developments like these in a more timely way, rather than continually being taken by surprise by unexpected procedural developments.

I earlier blogged about my concern that BC Place’s new roof, built at a cost of over half a billion dollars of public money, was leaking just before the Grey Cup game.  Now I am hearing that its managers are so concerned that the new roof cannot handle a snowfall that they are frantically pumping hot air and steam into the stadium building in the hopes that the snow expected Monday will melt before it accumulates and causes the roof to collapse.  Apparently the expensive new roof wasn’t engineered to accept the load generated by a snowfall and, unlike the old roof, it lacks a built-in heating system that can be switched on to melt the snow as it falls.  I guess we will soon see if these band-aid measures work.