Madam Speaker, I appreciate my hon. colleague's intervention. I just want to take him back a bit to the global setting in 1992 when the world came together to say that we needed to protect our oceans. The oceans were in trouble. Marine species, especially our predators, were in huge decline. The oceans were acidifying. Fast forward to today, and now we have a huge problem with marine plastics proliferating our oceans, an even greater problem we now have to deal with.
Member states were given 25 and 30 years to protect 5 and 10% of the oceans. In the last 25 years, until last year, Canada had protected only 1% of our ocean. That is inadequate by any standards. Over the last 10 years it was not just Conservative governments but also Liberal governments that brought us to that 1% protection.
Would the member agree that not only do we need minimal standards, but that we also need to intensify this process to achieve our 5 and 10%? As I mentioned earlier, I was just at a conference where the leading scientists were talking about going to half, to protecting 50% of our oceans. Therefore, we are not doing enough in Canada. Would the member not agree that we need to do more?