Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, I will thank the witnesses for coming.
I am looking forward to hearing but haven't heard any update yet on when we will have the minister as a witness. We invited him a while back. I was encouraged to hear Mr. Rosser say that he'll be coming on the main estimates as well. We haven't even asked for that yet, but I'm excited that he will be here on two occasions in the very near future to answer our questions.
I was also glad to hear that, as per Mr. Sopuck's suggestion, we'll be able to have scientists here to discuss their work at our request. We'll look forward to making those requests during future committee business, perhaps. That is a good sign.
I want to go back briefly to Mr. Donnelly's questions on the Cohen commission. The minister was very clear yesterday in the House in response to a Liberal lob question that several of the Cohen commission recommendations had already been enacted, I assume under the previous government. I would like to request that if you have an analysis, which I'm sure there is somewhere in the department, as to which of the 75 recommendations have already been implemented, and the list of the others, perhaps, if they're partially implemented, showing why they haven't been implemented, if there is such a list, attached to it, I'd like to also know what the cost of implementing each of them one time annually would be.
Perhaps I'll just ask for that to be tabled at a later time.
On marine protected areas, I met with a number of stakeholders who are very concerned about what this will mean for them. Their advice, hopefully, if the minister is consulting with industry groups, is that first you need to determine what you're protecting and why you are protecting it.
In your view, can you protect, for instance, sponge reefs on the bottom and still fish above them and have that considered to be part of a marine protected area, or are we talking about fishing at all depths? You mentioned that some want it to be closed. I've heard, even from the shipping industry, that some want there to be no passage, even, over these areas, which I think is a very scary prospect for many of our coastal industries.
Perhaps you could give me a quick indication whether it's possible under the IUCN qualifications that you can still perhaps have a productive ocean at the same time that you have a protected ocean.