Thank you for the question.
The first and most important response is that I believe we do have the right tools and that we have some of the most well-trained officers of any nation. I have a great degree of faith in what they do and how they achieve it.
In terms of the different gaps, there is a variety of different noted gaps if you study the seafood industry. Typically, it does apply to a variety of things that don't.... I'm not necessarily highlighting it as a gap for the agency, but it is resource-intensive. To focus on Nova Scotia as an example, there are 13,300 kilometres of coastline, so the prevalence of small boats conducting illegal fishing as well as boats that hover beyond our economic exclusion zone are areas that we may or may not even have the ability to monitor or surveil or, in some cases, have the authority to interdict. There is a variety of gaps.
Specific to the agency's tools, resources and people, we have a sufficient number of resources applied to the task commensurate with the level of priority that this is for the agency, but I suspect that when you are dealing with the tactical level, where the actual fishing and harvesting are occurring, those gaps would likely require a significant number of resources, people and surveillance and the ability to interdict small boats. It's very difficult to have a culture of compliance and to monitor a wide variety of very intensive offshore activities as well.
Those gaps are quite inherent, but I would also defer to a lot of our partner agencies and police of jurisdiction, who likely are more qualified to speak to what the gaps are in the identification of illegal fishing. On issues like this, we have a variety of different projects and working groups where we do focus on this particular threat stream. We work hand in hand with all of our partner agencies.
To continue on the example of the marine security operations centres, we have the RCMP, Fisheries and Oceans, the Coast Guard and a variety of other partners there. We do work together. That facilitates a lot of information sharing, but most importantly, awareness of what the different regional challenges are.
We are well equipped, and we have been successful in achieving a lot of targets, lookouts and examinations on behalf of the department and agencies that hold the legislation we enforce, but again, I would suspect that maybe some of the more regional operational teams might have a more qualified opinion or response.
Thank you again for your question.