Fisheries committee  No, I don't. I think what's happened in the last two years is more than has happened in marine protection in Canada in the last 150. It's happened very quickly. A lot of resources have gone into it, but attention to process.... We really do need to dig down into that as we lead up to 2020, both for indigenous communities and coastal communities and having a real sense of the why of marine protection.

Fisheries committee  Yes, and in answer to your question, it was over a time period of about a decade, because we also sit on the Gully advisory committee, and, if you include marine planning and the eastern Scotian Shelf integrated management plan, which I include in the marine protected area work because of the network plan coming out of that, I would probably say over 100 meetings over 10 years.

Fisheries committee  Sometimes you have a bunch of meetings, but between 75 and 100.

Fisheries committee  So I think the more certainty we can give to the types of activities, the more quickly we will be able to go, and the regulatory process will happen more quickly. People forget in five years. It's a long time. I think quick but right is important.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Absolutely.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  I don't think we should take more than two years of community meetings. That's maximum. I understand the regulatory impact assessment takes some time, so there shouldn't be more than two years of community meetings. However, I really do think a whole new process needs to be established for coastal marine protected areas, where we establish community-based marine conservation working groups that then get to put forward their information, because they are going to be the communities that are managing and monitoring these areas.

Fisheries committee  In Atlantic Canada—so you will note that that's a national brief, it's high level—there is a very active lobster fishery, and sometimes it's the only major industry. I honestly don't know how we're going to get long-term spatial no-take. I can see that in some of our coastal communities where there's a very short lobster season, maybe two months, having 10 months where there's no activity should in some ways be equivalent to a significant no-take.

Fisheries committee  Personally, I think we need to speed up the process and get it done. I think there needs to be some flexibility, because I feel very strongly about stakeholder engagement and people feeling like they're part of something, and that it's proactive. In some places that might take longer.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I was.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I was involved from the very beginning, and one of the things I felt that DFO did quite a good job at was that all the meetings were held in Cape Breton. Being from Cape Breton, I fully understand how important that is. You have to get across the causeway. There was quite a broad stakeholder engagement.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for inviting me to speak to you again on another important topic related to Canada's fisheries and oceans. I know you have all had a full agenda over the past year, and your work is critical to ensuring that Canada has world-leading laws, policies, and practices to ensure a healthy and prosperous future for our oceans.

Fisheries committee  I can't comment on that right now. There's a change in administration.