Mr. Terry Rees at the Subcommittee of the Standing Committee on Finance on Bill C-38

I'd like to just add that the fisheries have been a proxy for environmental conditions—the canary in the coal mine, if you will.

Protecting fish and the underlying conditions that allow them to thrive gives a level of certainty that's not really available through fisheries science, frankly. Given conditions in an aquatic environment that are healthy and thereby protecting fish habitat, you protect the underlying conditions required for healthy life of all kinds.