We looked at all the different tools we have at our disposal to protect marine mammals and we found that generally they weren't being used. The other thing we found was the collaboration between all the various departments...one of the problems is that we have so many players in this: the Coast Guard, Transport Canada, Environment Canada and DFO. They're all part of the solution and the collaboration...although we did see it work, once they started acting. Before that, it's almost as if there wasn't any pressure to act.
They have several tools at their disposal, such as, marine protected areas, species at risk, the marine mammal regulations, which had been proposed in 2012 and only got implemented in 2018 while we were doing our audit.
I don't know how to answer why they didn't act before. They had a variety of tools and we found that the action happened after there was a severe incident and then all of a sudden, we started to see a whole bunch of action. Why there wasn't action before is a great question to ask the departments.