Canadian Lawyer

w w w . C A N A D I A N L a w y e r m a g . c o m A u g u s t 2 0 1 4 25 Spears recalled in a recent phone inter- view from his office in West Vancouver, a place he says is similar to his hometown — minus the cold and fog. That interest only grew during his law studies, which were paid for in part by summer jobs that helped expand his knowledge about envi- ronmental, social, and economic aspects of the ocean, and develop a personal sense of environmental stewardship. Those jobs included counting sea birds in their summer Arctic nesting grounds for the Canadian Wildlife Ser- vice ("I don't know the value of one sea bird, but I can tell you what 800,000 smell like," quips Spears), whale watching with Parks Canada, and owning and operating a fishing charter business that also ferried tourists and government employees to McNabb Island in Halifax Harbour. In their final year of law school, Spears and fellow student and Halifax friend Gary Wharton landed a $54,000 federal grant to do a stand-alone legal study on the issue of property rights for the tidal fisheries in relation to the Report of the Task Force on Atlantic Fisheries (known as the Kirby Task Force). "It was a great job for two eager and enthusiastic law students," recalls Wharton, today a partner in Vancouver maritime law firm Bernard LLP. "And it helped to keep beer in the fridge." Wharton calls Spears "one of the best and most love- able human beings you could ever hope to meet. He is a real East Coast guy who is a great story teller and bonds with people faster than anyone I've ever met." It was in London, where the newly married law grad went to do post-graduate work in the mid-1980s, that Spears' passion for maritime law hit its peak. In addition to his studies at the LSE, where he notably did a 200-page report on marine insurance and arctic shipping, he drilled deep into London's centuries-old marine world. That community was being revitalized by the work of the International Maritime Orga- nization. Located on the Thames River just down from the British House of Parlia- ment, the IMO is the United Nations agen- cy with responsibility for the safety and security of shipping and the prevention of marine pollution by ships. "The IMO was really getting the wind in its sails then on issues like oil pollution, trade, insurance, risk, indemnities — all that good stuff," says Spears. "They were really looking at law as a continuum to help prevent problems. That really helped to hone my thinking." After articling with the Vancouver office of Farris, Spears decided to settle permanently in B.C. "I have no regrets," says Spears, who towed his boat from Hali- fax to Vancouver. "Vancouver is Canada's busiest port so this seemed like the place to be." He soon left Farris and joined David MacEwen, who has more than 40 years of experience in all areas of maritime, admi- ralty, and marine insurance disputes. One Supreme Court case Spears was involved with while there was Canadian National Railway Co. v. Norsk Pacific Steamship Co., a 1992 decision that broadened the scope of recovery for pure economic loss. Spears then went to work for Kelowna marine litigation lawyer Barry Oland. After going through a divorce, Spears decided to strike out on his own in 1997. Since then, he has been practising maritime law from his office next to the ferry termi- nus in Horseshoe Bay, handling everything from small claims to multimillion-dollar cases covering marine insurance and ship collisions, to cargo claims, ship sinkings, and coroners' inquests, fisheries disputes, salvage cases, environmental pollution, and cases involving water lots. "What I like about maritime law is that it is factually and legally interesting," says Spears. "You get into some very old marine cases where you have to blow dust off some old Exchequer Court decision from the 19th Century. But sometimes it's also very dynamic, and you are practising law in real time." One such case happened in 2005 when the BC Ferries ship Queen of Oak Bay came ashore and crashed into several buildings, including Spears' office. "I went to work almost immediately for Transport Canada as an outside counsel doing an investigation," he says. "Twenty-eight boats were crushed, 50,000 ferry passengers were backed up, there was a potential pollution incident, and a need for SAR. You can't get any more real than that." After that incident, Spears was hired by Transport Canada to act as its outside legal counsel for marine matters on the West Coast. He was also hired to develop a national one-week course on marine investigation to look at regulatory offences under the Canada Shipping Act — the course, which features a mock trial using a federal courtroom, is still in use. As maritime security has increased in recent years thanks to the rise of safer shipping methods, better port control, and the advent of modern information and navigational systems, the most lucra- tive field of maritime law — cargo dam- age claims — has declined. "We used to get 300 to 400 claims 25 years ago," says Spears. "But that's fallen to a fraction of those numbers today." One big increase for Spears, however, has been in his work as a consultant, speaker, and commentator on non-legal issues like climate change, environmental protection, and conservation that impact the Earth's oceans as a whole. However it is the Arctic — and Canada's responsibility under international agreement to provide SAR for 9.3-million square kilometres of ocean space, and 244,000 km of coast- line — that puts Spears' sharp intellect and personal passion on display. "The official Canadian approach to this issue is smugness," says Spears, who scoffs at federal claims the current leap-frog strat- egy of sending southern-based resources into the Arctic to deal with SAR situations is adequate. "Bureaucrats say SAR in the Arctic is not an issue, that everything's fine. But as the people at Lloyd's have known for a long time, the Arctic is a risk. Picture 2,000 tourists in lifeboats or clinging to a disabled or sinking vessel in the Arctic. This could happen and if and when it does it will expose our minimum SAR capabili- ties there for the whole world to see." "The IMo was really getting the wind in its sails then on issues like oil pollution, trade, insurance, risk, indemnities — all that good stuff. They were really looking at law as a continuum to help prevent problems. That really helped to hone my thinking."

• Cover