Mr. Chair, again through you to Mr. Lunney, I thank you for the question.
Habitat is extremely important and becoming much more important. I think with the new bill, when it's tabled, you will see that a lot of attention is being paid to habitat and the ability to be able to work with many others or have much more freedom to work with others.
I've been meeting with most of the provincial governments throughout the country and the ministers involved--the ministers of environment, fisheries, water, stewardship, etc. Everyone has major concerns about habitat. We have been working with our own Department of the Environment federally, with Natural Resources, etc., but also with the provinces to talk about coordination--eliminating duplication, eliminating costs, eliminating timeframe, i.e., waiting for somebody else to do what you would probably be doing yourself again afterwards. We are talking about proper coordination to bring people around the table to save time, effort, money, and get a lot more done.
In relation to the marine protected areas, again, with the ones we have been involved in, response has been phenomenal. However, it can't be done with the heavy hand of government just coming in and drawing circles, as might have been tried sometimes in the past where we got a lot of push-back from the local people and fishermen, etc. These have to be done in consultation with the local areas and based on good scientific advice.
We are all for protecting the habitat. We talked about that even at the international level. However, we also must remember that we have people who make a living from the marine environment, and there has to be a balance. It's great to say that the easiest way to protect the ocean habitat is to close everything down, but that would certainly affect an awful lot of people and an awful lot of communities and the economic future of the country. What we try to do is work with the groups, the agencies, the communities of interest involved.
On the one on the west coast, the glass sponge reef has certainly come up, and maybe somebody can give us more specifics. Mr. Murray has some more specific information on that.