Fisheries committee  Sure. As the minister says, we're ready. We take responsibility for the licensing and for the federal regime on December 18. We will have a regulation in place. We will have licences provided, and the licence conditions—which have been circulated broadly to industry but also to

Fisheries committee  We're aware of all of the ones that are taking place. We're following them very closely. There have been a number of meetings on closed containment that we've chaired and that we've participated in with stakeholders. We're contributing financially to some of the demonstration pro

Fisheries committee  I would say a couple of things with respect to that. One is that we recently became aware that you had heard that. We are trying to check that out to see what does, in fact, happen in Washington State and whether they simply don't use it or are not allowed to use it. Our unders

Environment committee  I would be happy to comment. I think a number of things have been a challenge. I guess I would point to how we developed recovery strategies, a big body of the work. Initially a lot of the work was deciding the process around whether to list or not. Then the next big body of wor

Environment committee  I can jump in. I agree with everything that's been said. There is no formula. As Virginia says, it really is mostly at the listing time, and that's sometimes why the listing decision takes a while. There are very significant consequences to going ahead and recommending listing-

Environment committee  They're issues that public servants are struggling with as well. We have an example that our colleague from Parks spoke to, about trying to take an ecosystem approach. We have a couple in Fisheries, where we've tried to do it and lumped together species into one recovery plan, on

Environment committee  I would note as well that those recovery strategies and the action plans all include further work that should be done. They commit us and they commit others to do this science piece, that policy piece, this program piece, and in the meantime we get a new batch every year of speci

Environment committee  On the aquatic side, some of this stuff is still before the courts, so I have to be very careful about what comments I make, particularly about the Fisheries Act piece of it. Three or four decisions have come down that have provided direction that our department and the others a

Environment committee  As I said, part of that is still before the courts, specifically the relationship between the Fisheries Act and the Species at Risk Act, and the application, so I really can't speak to that. I can tell you that we have contemplated significantly the relationship between the Fi

Fisheries committee  I might add that a number of international agreements speak to different types of numbers. One of them said that we were going to have 12 in place by 2012, one spoke of 10%, and one spoke of MPA networks. What we can say is that there has been an exercise to try to bring togethe

Fisheries committee  I think it's fair to point out that five years ago, we started to invest in more monitoring. With respect to our own policies, we weren't certain if we were able to meet our requirements. But the monitoring has been more in the area of compliance, as opposed to effectiveness, and

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much. The slide deck was actually presented on Tuesday by my colleagues. We have it today by way of background. I thought I would say a few words so that we don't start just by asking for your comments and questions. I will introduce my colleagues and say a coupl

Fisheries committee  Let me start, while giving my colleague Alistair fair warning that I'm going to ask him to talk on some of the specifics. I'll start with some sensitivities and assumptions. You talked about what could affect economic viability. We made a number of assumptions. We pointed this o

Fisheries committee  Again, I'll start. An area of work that's been identified as useful to do is to have a life-cycle analysis of environmental impacts of open-net pen and closed containment systems. It may be a bit like comparing apples and oranges, but when you're talking about a land-based syste

Fisheries committee  Part of what we do is to see what research is being done elsewhere. In fact, if you look at our CSA session a couple of years ago, which Jay can speak to, it was largely a review of research that's being done elsewhere. But it is something that we're interested in. We do have a s