Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister, for making time to come to the committee today. If I were your scheduler, I'd be a little worried that we might have to be changing that every two weeks for you to come here.
But I appreciate the openness you have extended to us. Also, I want to thank your department for taking leadership on an issue that caused great concern in my riding, which is the sinking of a barge in Robson Bight. Unfortunately, it took a little bit of time to get DFO on board to go down and do the investigation that was so necessary, but we're really happy that you did that, and now the video has been released of what is down there, and we hope this can be brought up as soon as the weather gets better.
The people of the west coast are very concerned about issues like that because of the sensitive waters. We have a lot of issues with disappearing salmon, the whales that create a huge economy in tourism, and things like that, so people are very concerned about keeping the area clean and healthy for the fish and the economy.
I know DFO has introduced the Pacific north coast integrated management area plan, or PNCIMA, on which you'll be working with provinces and aboriginal groups. But there's a concern that fishermen, stakeholders, industry, and the communities will not be part of that process. Also, there doesn't seem to be any movement on that front at this time, so people are concerned that the process is stalled.
We'd like to know where that process is, what's happening there, and if you will be engaging communities, stakeholders, and those kinds of people to make sure you hear all those voices so that we don't have another accident such as we had in Robson Bight. So I'm wondering, what are the plans to implement the PNCIMA?