Fisheries committee  Suffice it to say that the small craft harbour program and our commitment to it hasn't changed.

Fisheries committee  As the minister said, departments should always review their budgets to look for areas they should be getting out of, or finding new ways of doing what they currently do. That's what the strategic review did, and that's what the deficit reduction action plan will do. Completely

Fisheries committee  We expect, from the strategic review, about $56.8 million less in our budget. To the best of our ability, we have designed the programs to have either increased efficiency in delivery or no impact on Canadians.

Fisheries committee  Certainly, and as I said earlier, Mr. Chair, we have not withdrawn from PNCIMA. We have changed PNCIMA. In my view, PNCIMA had moved from what its original intention was, which would have been similar to what was done on the east coast under ESSIM. It should have been a high-le

Fisheries committee  Well, as you know, budget questions are not our purview. We do not set the overall budgets. The government did respond very quickly last year to the storm damage and injected significant moneys because of the abnormal situation we found ourselves in. There were significant incr

Fisheries committee  As you may know, we spent a considerable amount of time discussing those very questions--David and I, and others--at the Cohen commission last week and the week before. We're all becoming slightly expert at wild salmon policy. As you know, the consultations for the creation of t

Fisheries committee  We'll have to see what they are. There are too many speculative steps for me to be able to answer that question. I don't know what the recommendations will be; I don't know anything about them, so we'll have to let the commissioner do his work.

Fisheries committee  I would say in general that would be true of most fish species, so I can't say in particular for that one. But as a general principle, yes.

Fisheries committee  You have about three or four questions in there. We always have recovery programs. We have worked for 20 years on recovering groundfish fishing. David Balfour will be able to give you more details on that. As for a commission of inquiry, I don't have an answer because it is a q

Fisheries committee  The numbers are somewhat different. If I remember correctly, the 2012 commitment is to have six marine protected areas by then, and we're on track for that. The 2020 commitment is a different set of numbers and includes much more than just our department. If you look at the map,

Fisheries committee  If I may, I'm not sure there's agreement that we're so far behind. I think in some ways it's a matter of definition, and we're certainly continuing to work on this. And we have not pulled out of PNCIMA; we have changed the scope of planning. It had been reaching a level of detail

Fisheries committee  Certainly there are other bodies, other government agencies and organizations, that would manage the whole of the regulatory side of oil and gas exploration in the gulf and elsewhere. Our role would be to ensure that fish and fish habitat are protected, somehow, through that ex

Fisheries committee  Excuse me, but let me add a little bit to this. The assessment work that Siddika is talking about is one piece of the work we're doing with the Americans. We're having a high-level meeting and junior-level meetings all across the system. They are looking at investing greater am

Fisheries committee  Unfortunately, I can't remember, because we were dealing with this last spring. But we did make sure—and certainly when I was down in Washington—with the Army Corps of Engineers that the piece of work that needed to be done to fortify was actually completed. I'm not sure of the l

Fisheries committee  It's definitely top of the radar screen and, yes, we'd be happy to come back with an update. We are concerned not just for the recreational fishery, obviously, but also for the ecosystem as a whole.