Thank you.
I propose that we skip to slide 27 to talk about what we've been doing with respect to eco-certification in Canada in terms of government, and end on that.
DFO, with the provincial governments, has developed a strategy for eco-certification, recognizing the trend and the importance of the issue for the Canadian fishing industry. Of course, again, this focuses on FAO-compliant processes that exist out there.
We also have had a lot of involvement in policy development for these eco-labels. I personally have been involved with the Marine Stewardship Council in the development of their criteria and their processes to ensure that what they're fleshing out is consistent with Canadian rules and management of fisheries. I also chair a committee of DFO and industry at which we have discussions about this particular issue, and my colleague Trevor has a similar committee with the aquaculture industry.
Of course, there's been some funding to the industry to help them meet and address these market challenges. ACOA and the provinces have provided funding. I don't have the details because they're not my organizations, but they have provided funding to producers and to industry to be able to go through some of these processes.
What are the impacts of eco-labelling on DFO? It involves, as I mentioned at the outset, an assessment of DFO's work, an assessment of our science and management. They assess, they identify gaps, and they identify corrective measures that they recommend to the government that manages the fishery. In our case, it's DFO. Those recommendations actually become conditions of the certificate, so the client industry has to meet those conditions within the existence of the certificate or they lose it.
DFO's involvement in these processes includes feeding the process, in terms of the assessment, as well as helping to meet those conditions. The best that industry can do--and we've been explicit about that with the industry--is to come to the department early in the process to talk about their expectations. They can talk about where they think gaps will be--we certainly can help in that respect--as well as identify where they think requirements will be, whether in terms of science or management, so that we can actually line it up with our planning and our budget and, if it is work, verify that it falls within DFO's purview.
Gaps requiring work of an incremental nature--either things that don't fall within what we had planned or things that are not within our mandate--would probably have to be paid by the industry or would be cost-shared with the industry. The bottom line, though, is that the best way DFO can support industry in meeting this trend is to continue not only to support the processes but also to continue to improve the way we manage our fisheries and aquaculture in a sustainable way. The stronger our regime is, the better they are prepared to meet the tests imposed by these eco-certification processes.
We've also been telling our story. I brought an example of a pamphlet that I use when we go to the Boston seafood show or the Brussels seafood show or when meeting with buyers. It generally describes the way we manage our fisheries and aquaculture in Canada. It is available on DFO's website.
We tell our story. We've not been good at that in the past, and we're trying to get better in terms of getting the information out. We also challenge conclusions. I mention that sometimes some of these processes have either erroneous information or information that is not up to date, so we challenge those conclusions by providing information and making the facts right.
That was what I had to say to the committee, and I'm open to questions.