Madam Speaker, when it comes to the term “protection”, it always implies it is black and white. It is either a protected area or it is a totally exploited area. However, the devil is always in the details. If the goal of a marine protected area is to protect the ocean bottom and the vertebrates that happen to live there, perhaps ocean going traffic would be allowed on the surface. Perhaps a certain kind of pelagic fishery would be allowed, and those kinds of things.
In the case of a locally productive angling area cherished by the local community, if that were completely sewn up so that no recreational angling could take place, it would cause great economic harm to the region, as happened in California because of the lack of consultation in the California establishment on the marine protected area. I had the honour of sitting on the fisheries committee while this topic was being debated.
It goes back to my hon. colleague's comments about consultation, because it is the local people who know the complexity of the area. Has there been enough consultations with local people, and how valuable is that consultation with local communities?