Environment committee  My mandate only covers the federal government. I'm only allowed to audit the federal government, so I looked at its role in regulating this industry. In the Atlantic provinces, this industry is regulated for the most part by the provinces. In British Columbia, it is regulated by

Environment committee  The regulations around drugs and pesticides would be for salmon farming. We found there were no limits to the amount and timing of drugs and pesticides used in those pens. We found that industry did have to report to DFO on when they used those pesticides and how much, but there

Environment committee  The biggest fish escapes in Canada have occurred in the Atlantic region, not so much in the Pacific region, and it's the Pacific region where there are these national standards, because they're regulated by DFO. So a recommendation is that DFO talk to their counterparts in the At

Environment committee  I would say we made some recommendations in our report and the government needs to implement those recommendations, as it has agreed to.

Environment committee  We looked at the issue of whether Environment Canada was playing a leadership role in achieving the 2020 biodiversity targets, and we found that they had defined their role as leader quite narrowly. They had not worked with their federal-provincial-territorial or even NGO partner

Environment committee  We are doing an audit right now on the use of the strategic environmental assessment tool, and I'll be reporting that this fall. As you know, we've been looking at that tool over the last five years in each department, looking at whether the strategic environmental assessment too

Environment committee  What I can tell you is that on the west coast, there are Pacific aquaculture regulations that are specific to the west coast. There is not such a thing for the east coast, but the Fisheries Act applies on both coasts. That's how it works right now.

Environment committee  That would be a question you would have to ask the minister.

Environment committee  Unfortunately, I can't tell you what the priorities are. I do know that Canada has set 19 goals. Those were determined in 2015. They are in four areas: protection of lands and waters, the area of sustainability, information to Canadians, and having Canadians connected to nature.

Environment committee  In terms of on-the-ground conservation, we looked at six targets specifically. They have reached a couple of those targets already. They have an inventory of their protected areas. That's one target they've reached. Statistics Canada has some work on the issue of natural capital

Environment committee  We didn't look at that issue of habitat conservation. Obviously, as the theory has it, yes, habitat conservation is one of ways of protecting biodiversity, but that's not a question we looked at in our audit.

Environment committee  We did talk a little about that. This was mentioned in the Cohen commission report on the same issue. The way I would describe it is that I think Fisheries and Oceans Canada is at risk of claims that it prioritizes aquaculture over the protection of wild fish. Let me tell you why

Environment committee  That's not something we audited, although we mention in our report that in some cases, that is happening. Right now, closed pen on land is used to raise the fish to a certain size, and then they're put into the ocean. That's not something we looked at in our audit. It is somethin

Environment committee  You'll see a little bit in our report. Paragraph 1.5 is more in the “Context” area as opposed to our “Findings”.

Environment committee  I just want to indicate that when we looked at the audit of Environment Canada's protected areas and their bird conservation regions, as an example, we found that they've developed these strategies; they haven't actually identified what funds they need in order to protect the bir