It's a critical question, Mr. Hardie. I would think that the main reason a government would want to act in an interim way would be the provision of scientific advice, governmental or other scientific advice from universities or all kinds of industry groups that are looking at different scientific indicators. If there was a body of scientific advice that said a particular area required protection for a particular biological or ecological reason, I think that would be the starting point of a government's action to consider using one of these interim measures as part of a longer-term process for a marine protected designation.
I used the examples of marine mammals, of whales, but there would be other critical fish species. I think of some in the chair's province of Newfoundland and Labrador. If we try to look back 20 or 30 years, perhaps there were opportunities at certain moments in history, based on what I hope was some scientific analysis at the time, to make different decisions. Some of the coastal communities that our chair and others at this table represent might have survived a horrible economic circumstance differently, perhaps, had some of those decisions been made.
We would be guided basically by scientific advice, but also by the views of industry, of provincial and territorial governments, of indigenous groups. We would welcome people working with us to identify those areas, but we would want a rigorous scientific process to indicate that this was an area that should benefit from this interim protection.