Madam Speaker, I appreciate the comments from my colleague, the minister. He has emphasized that we, Canadians, and the community should be patient when citing the Laurentian Channel. However, I will take that back. We will be patient. We have gone from 25 years of only achieving essentially just over 1% protection of our oceans to now wanting to, in less than two years, achieve up to 5% and 10% by 2020.
Therefore, we essentially are making a huge change in a short order so, yes, with due respect, Canadians can be patient. However, they want to see action. They have been waiting for two-and-a-half decades. They want to see action now, not just with respect to the St. Lawrence but all coasts. Therefore, I encourage the minister to take those comments seriously, which I know he does, and to push his department to act quickly.
In terms of specifics with minimum protection standards, the scientific panel is one potential suggestion. That, I believe, can be quickly constructed and brought together.
We also need to remember our local organizations, whether it is the provinces and territories or first nations on the coast. They need to be included in the consultations to define exactly what those minimum standards should be within those marine protected areas.
If we look to organizations like West Coast Environmental Law, it has already produced tables on how to move quickly to establish not only definitions of what should be protected in an MPA but how to move to protect fisheries—