Thank you for inviting me here today.
I'll briefly introduce myself. I work for Oceans North as the VP of conservation and projects, but I also grew up in rural Nova Scotia and I sit as an adviser to the Minister of Environment in Nova Scotia on the round table for the Environmental Goals and Climate Change Reduction Act. Almost exactly 10 years ago, I had the pleasure of releasing an economic report for Nova Scotia that really spoke to having to take some leaps and bounds of faith as we moved forward to changing the economic outcomes and future for Atlantic Canada.
I very much appreciate speaking to you today on this important bill. I think we want to express our general support for the amendments to the Atlantic accord agreement as proposed in Bill C-49. We hear the concerns of our colleagues in the fishing industry and look forward to working with them to make sure there are adequate community benefits and consultations. There are many lessons learned around the world—from as nearby as Rhode Island to as far away as across the pond in Scotland—with respect to how to make sure that communities benefit and that fishermen are the beneficiaries of rather than being impacted by new industries in the ocean.
Our support comes from the following interests and areas of work: first, advocating for and demonstrating the potential for zero-emissions marine industries and the necessity of energy transition; and, second, strengthening the protection standards for the marine protected areas that we have put in place, often in collaboration with and working closely with the fishing industry.
On the first item, we are involved in the regional assessment process for offshore wind in both Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, and we are advocating, again, as I mentioned, for community benefits but also thinking about the opportunities for the marine industries and inshore fisheries, in particular, to start to electrify nearshore work boats and then to build out this bidirectional charging infrastructure at fishing wharves. Offshore winds can help us do that, as long as the communities that are nearby are the beneficiaries of some of that energy.
We know we need to do energy projects differently from how we have done them in the past. The recent and landmark Blueberry decision in B.C. requires the Impact Assessment Act and project proponents to address cumulative environmental impacts at all stages of projects. We're not seeing this yet as part of the regional assessment, but we need to. Bill C-49 can help with this. We also must work with the communities, as we mentioned, to make sure they are benefiting from public resources. We know that electricity prices are going up, and we know that in Atlantic Canada we rely on oil more than any other—