Environment committee  Thank you, committee members, for having us here today. I wanted to focus on CPAWS's concerns with the quantity and quality of marine protected areas in Canada, and also make recommendations to you for how we could improve on the current situation. You did hear earlier this week

Environment committee  Thank you very much, Will. Beyond minimum protection standards, one of the other issues is giving interim protection for areas that are being considered for protection. We need to move from site-by-site MPA establishment to establishing networks of protected areas. One of the th

Environment committee  On the marine side, I would echo what Alison has said, except to say that, while we appreciate the funding that was recently allocated for marine protected areas in the budget that will definitely help DFO increase collaboration among federal agencies and bring other levels of go

Environment committee  Yes, we do our work through the Green Budget Coalition, and making budget recommendations. I would echo what Alison has said, that this is the place to look. We're already starting to work on next year's budget.

Environment committee  They were our reports.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  No, not yet. I'm still working on it.

Fisheries committee  Thank you, and good morning, everyone. I'm really pleased to be here today representing the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, also known as CPAWS. We're a national grassroots conservation charity, with 13 chapters across the country and a national office in Ottawa. We've w

Fisheries committee  Certainly enforcement is a key element in the long-term management of a marine protected area. There are many elements to that, and there are different ways to do it. I know that in Australia they use overflights, and there are a lot of electronic tools that fishing boats now nee

Fisheries committee  Certainly, their food supply does need to be protected. From the research that's being done by scientists studying the southern resident killer whales, we now know their critical habitat. The scientists have defined an area that the whales rely on when they spend are in the Strai

Fisheries committee  They can't necessarily protect all elements, and certainly a lot more needs to be done on the chinook fishery to protecting chinook stocks. A whole lot of interrelationships here need to be addressed and a number of threats to the killer whales beyond just.... There's the food, t

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Yes, certainly. “Full protection” means that all fisheries would be closed and all industrial uses would be prohibited in an area. Based on the analysis we've done at this point, that's about 1% of the ocean in Canada. We think there is still some way to go to provide better pr

Fisheries committee  Yes, of course.

Fisheries committee  I believe about 1% now is fully protected, yes.