Environment committee  Ashley Wallis will be speaking on behalf of Oceana Canada.

Fisheries committee  Yes, we will. We've been consulting with the department on this, with the minister's office, in part to make sure we avoid any unintended consequences. I believe the last day for amendments is May 10. We will make sure we're in before that, and hopefully significantly before tha

Fisheries committee  We have roughly 27 stocks that are probably in the critical zone. We've lost 55% of our fish. If we talk about institutional changes, I don't see any. We can expect that downward trend to continue over time if we don't take this opportunity to fix it. If we put that guidance in

Fisheries committee  I feel pretty comfortable saying that it's certainly our top priority now. I was teaching a class recently, and I reflected that I think this bill, and this element of the bill, is the most important thing I've worked on in my 20-year career in conservation. I believe strongly

Fisheries committee  I think it's certainly more than just a management issue within DFO. When you see the same thing happening over a generation or more, then you start to look at fundamental drivers, as opposed to one person making a bad decision.

Fisheries committee  I think it is lack of guidance, and it's lack of a framework for making these decisions. I think we're all complicit. There are a lot of voices on a lot of different stocks, voices that are calling for stocks to be reopened before they should, or for quotas to be set higher, to b

Fisheries committee  I wouldn't be as stark as that. I think we have examples of good management in Canada. We have examples where stocks have come back, good-news stories like halibut. I take that as a really positive point. When you take the pressure off stocks and let them recover, in almost all c

Fisheries committee  For sure.

Fisheries committee  The obvious point we all agree on is that overfishing of stocks, including cod, has done far more to hurt communities in Newfoundland than any conservation or conservationist has. These are tough decisions. The idea of developing a proper plan and setting goals in advance actuall

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Madam Chair and committee members. Thank you for the opportunity for Oceana to appear today on Bill C-68, and thank you for your continuing good work. Oceana Canada is collaborating with the other environmental groups that have been in front of you as well. We're re

Fisheries committee  Yes. By far one of the most important things we can do for our oceans is to limit climate change.

Fisheries committee  Absolutely, and I think DFO is getting better at that too. I'm going to look to my colleagues here to see if anyone has a good example to point to exactly that.

Fisheries committee  Sure. Bob helped me on this. In our science report, we pointed to a number of case studies, such as the Atlantic sea scallops in the U.S., which recovered quite quickly. Georges Bank haddock is another one that comes to mind, which recovered very quickly once a rebuilding plan wa

Fisheries committee  That's now at near-historic levels.

Fisheries committee  That's a great question. Certainly, a fair bit of it relies on co-operation between countries. It depends. If the vessel is within your own waters, I think you have much more that you can do, obviously, than if it's outside your waters. We do increasingly have tools. Using AIS