Fisheries committee  No. It's information that we generally have. Two, once there is a certification, it's almost always—and I believe it is in fact always—with conditions. When you're certified, they say the condition is they want better information on bycatch, or they want the PA, precautionary approach, framework to be clearer in this area, and that inevitably involves DFO.

Fisheries committee  I'll get you the specific answer in a moment, but the answer, I think, is most of them. Am I right?

Fisheries committee  Thanks for the question. I'll start, and then I'll ask Nadia to add to my comments. First of all, you're absolutely right in terms of FAO guidelines being the core of this and DFO or the Government of Canada being involved in establishing the guidelines. Guidelines are established from time to time.

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much for having us here today to talk about eco-certification. My name is Kevin Stringer, I'm the assistant deputy minister for ecosystems and fisheries management. On my left is Eric Gilbert, director general for aquaculture management. On my right is Nadia Bouffard, director general for external relations.

Fisheries committee  This stock being northern cod, 2J3KL, and just the limit reference point being the average of what it was approximately like in the eighties, and we're at 18% of that now. A few years ago, a decade ago, we were at 2%.

Fisheries committee  So it increased nine times, and millions more, but it's still 18% of the average of the eighties.

Fisheries committee  On lobster first, you're right. The lobster sustainability program comes to an end today. It's the end of a few years. Over the years, we removed about 600 licences, removed about 200,000 traps from the water, established all kinds of new sustainability measures such as biodegradable traps, reductions in traps per harvester, and all these types of things, so it was a very useful program.

Fisheries committee  Under the previous act we did try to apply standards, but we did it by policy. We now have the ability to establish in regulation an actual standard so with respect to a pipeline crossing, here is the standard you must meet. With respect to barriers or dams, here is the standard you must meet.

Fisheries committee  There's an attempt to have regulatory clarity. There's an attempt so everybody out there who is affected by the Fisheries Act, either proponents, or conservation groups, or angling groups, or people who care about the fishery, have a good understanding of what the rules are. And we'll be able to roll those standards out and develop them with conservation groups, with angling groups, with industry, over the next few years, but it is indeed providing that regulatory clarity people were asking for.

Fisheries committee  Indeed. It comes from a number of things, but certainly in terms of those 12,500 projects that happen in the country that may impact fisheries, we know from the years of experience where the likely impacts are going to be. We know we don't need to look at 12,500 projects. We have it down to about 1,000.

Fisheries committee  There were indeed reductions associated with the strategic operations and review process. The legislation changed, the focus is on serious harm. We have consolidated the office from a large number of offices, and done some economies of scale to ensure that we have sufficient people in the offices we have to do the work we have to do.

Fisheries committee  I can make a couple of points. First of all, it's an enormously important program. The Great Lakes fishery is a major economic driver for the Great Lakes areas, and the Asian carp program funds that were part of this, as you note, are part of an overall $17.5-million investment by the government in Asian carp prevention.

Fisheries committee  Not aware, but we can check and see and get back if we're wrong about that.

Fisheries committee  The other question was about Fisheries Act authorizations around pipelines, and our process. I'll just speak briefly to what we do. Section 35 of the Fisheries Act basically says that no project, including pipelines, may cause “serious harm to fish that are part of a commercial, recreational or Aboriginal fishery”.

Fisheries committee  —no, and it hasn't been brought to us in any recent time. I think the last time that was dealt with was quite literally decades ago, if I recall correctly.