Thank you, Chair.
I'll start with a statement to the minister. As the son of a fisher, I'm extremely aware of the value of our fishery resource to small communities, and I'm always supportive of government putting in steps to manage and control the resource.
Minister, I'm sure you are aware, as are some of my colleagues, of examples of what happens to coastal communities when government fails to provide leadership and take those decisions. I've referenced the collapse of the cod industry off Newfoundland, which the chair is quite familiar with. Coastal communities there and the people impacted are still paying a price for that.
When I look at our government's objective of extending marine protected areas, generally it's a philosophy that I support, because we cannot allow total access to a resource wherever the industry wants to go.
I've dealt with an issue in my own riding in which government was looking to control the management of a resource. When you looked at the key science, you saw it supported the direction that the government was taking, while the fishers themselves were opposed to it, so it is extremely important for the department to have readily available and detailed data when it comes to the science part of it.
The other part we heard from the fishing side is the ability to enforce the regulations that the government puts in place.
I would like you to speak on the ability of the department to better provide the scientific data as it manages the resource and the protection of the resource, as well as on the importance of traditional knowledge. We heard very clearly from our first nations community about the important dialogue they had with Parks Canada on a similar collaboration on marine protected areas and about Parks Canada's use of traditional knowledge. I would simply urge you to put a heavy emphasis on the traditional knowledge acquired by fishers when we're looking at expanding these protected areas.
Could you expand on that?