Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. And good morning to everyone. It's a pleasure to be here today. DFO's involvement with the Canadian General Standards Board in the conservation, protection, and the enforcement branch goes back to 1997. There are three general areas that we currently use the

Government Operations committee  I regret that I'm not able to confirm that this standard has been brought in for pesticides. I'm not aware of there being a qualification standard for dockside monitoring for pesticides.

Government Operations committee  Yes, certainly. I will research it and see what I can come up with and dig further into it. You caught me off-guard with that question, to be quite honest. I'm not aware of it being there, but I will check into it.

Government Operations committee  Thank you. In both cases there are challenges. The CGSB's role is largely about process management, that they have the proper systems in place, that they have the proper repositories, the proper protection of data and information sharing, and so on and so forth. Anomalies creep

Government Operations committee  We've already undertaken some changes, as I mentioned earlier, when we did our at-sea observer program. We tightened up the qualification process significantly from what it was for the dockside, and we've now gone back and we're starting to amend the dockside policy as well to ma

Government Operations committee  Thank you. Our engagement with the CGSB is more in the qualification process. We prefer the CGSB over private companies largely because they're not profit-driven and they are an arm of the government, although independent from DFO. They provide us with a quality service at a rea

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Mr. Byrne. One of the drawbacks to inscribing everything in regulation is that it is a very time-consuming process. If you want to amend or modify anything later, based on new evidence or new data, it's a very laborious process to go through to effect the regulatory c

Government Operations committee  Thank you, ma'am. We are satisfied with the standards. The content of the course is what changes annually as new things come on or new fisheries come on. But the oversight of the training—the rigour, the testing requirements, and so on—has been in place since 1997. It has served

Government Operations committee  You mean the results of the training program?

Government Operations committee  DFO itself participates in the development of the course instruction, although the individual companies deliver the course. We also provide remedial and follow-up training as required. With regard to some of the weaknesses of the training program, just given the nature of the fi

Government Operations committee  Thank you, Ma'am. In the case of the standards and the training, as I alluded to, DFO provides the oversight. We also have our own audit program, in addition to what the CGSB does. We go out and audit companies with regard to the broader issues—things like fraud, collusion, and

Government Operations committee  I'm going to pass on this one. We don't use any other body for certification. Thank you.

Government Operations committee  In the DFO situation, I think as we move more to third-party suppliers of services, it is all the more important to have a body such as the CGSB to provide that standard oversight and a bit of independence from the program, and to allow us to develop a national qualification type

Fisheries committee  No, I work here in Ottawa.

Fisheries committee  You're going to be excited to learn that I really don't have a formal presentation, but I thought I'd take just a couple of minutes, to allow for more questions. I thought I'd take a couple of minutes to explain our makeup today. Brett and I are with the resource management progr