Environment committee  If I could just add to that, Chairman, as Virginia said, it's the Canadian population, but COSEWIC also looks to see whether there are actually subpopulations that should be assessed independently. We do have situations in which we have a single species but the COSEWIC assessment

Environment committee  It was an interesting set of questions. I'll take a shot at some of them. My colleagues, I'm sure, will help me out. I'd rather talk in general than on the very specific example you gave, because the questions you asked--

Environment committee  I understand that. That's why I'd rather move it away from the specific. In terms of thresholds, the threshold for an assessment of a species to be determined to be at risk is developed by COSEWIC using a series of criteria that COSEWIC has based on international criteria. These

Environment committee  If I may, there's another thing we do as well. It is slightly regionally variable; we haven't quite nailed down the same process across the country. We produce brochures in plain language that are readily available to people such as tour operator groups and others. These give an

Environment committee  It may not go quite as far as you're suggesting yet, but there is some movement we are making toward that.

Environment committee  I think we have two different issues with respect to the tuna. One is the assessment and potential listing under the Species at Risk Act. As far as I recall, the tuna has not yet been assessed by COSEWIC and therefore is not being considered for potential listing under the Specie

Environment committee  Well, for--

Environment committee  This has not been assessed by COSEWIC. As Virginia mentioned earlier, the trigger for consideration for listing under the Species at Risk Act is a COSEWIC scientific assessment, which, it's my understanding, has not been done for tuna. On the global scale, the international sca

Environment committee  We do assessments on fishery stocks. This is part of the standard business of Fisheries and Oceans Canada. This is an area that is not within my purview, so forgive me if I don't get too detailed on this. The department does have a very good understanding of tuna stocks in Canadi

Environment committee  As you can recognize, working in the marine environment is very challenging. From a Department of Fisheries and Oceans perspective, SARA is one of the tools we have to protect species at risk. There are others. The Fisheries Act also provides a fairly powerful approach to protect

Environment committee  I'm not sure I'd call them tweaks to SARA. The legislation is what the legislation is. Working with our regional colleagues who actually implement on the ground for us and with people who are engaged, involved, and affected by the decisions made under SARA, we are trying to find

Environment committee  You're absolutely correct; there is the potential for perverse results that were obviously not intended when the drafters put the legislation together. But as we're working our way through—as Virginia has already commented, this is still a fairly new piece of legislation—in many

Environment committee  Mr. Chair, when we were looking at the enforcement act some time ago and the connection with SARA, from a DFO perspective, we didn't perceive any initial areas where, in principle, we wouldn't be able to work with the environmental enforcement bill.

Environment committee  Unfortunately, it's not quite as clear as that.

Environment committee  If I may, you've raised some very interesting and challenging questions for us. With the abalone, the act does allow for us to take individuals of a species if it's for scientific purposes and doesn't jeopardize recovery of the species. We do have the ability to take species fr