Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members.

Fisheries committee  I believe so, yes. From my time as a salmon commissioner, I'm proud of the way that Canada has advanced its interests with respect to the United States. I participate, as does Owen, in the annual meetings of the International Pacific Halibut Commission. We don't apologize to anyb

Fisheries committee  I apologize.

Fisheries committee  That is the thrust of what I was trying to say in the first part of my presentation today. While I am sometimes an adversary in the recreational-commercial context, I fully know whom you got that message from, and I fully support the message that they brought, that the way the gl

Fisheries committee  My short answer to both questions is yes.

Fisheries committee  In my last appearance before this committee, I lamented the fact that over a long period, under two different governments, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans had been starved for resources, and in particular was being starved of resources to properly manage the recreational f

Fisheries committee  I think in general terms the answer is yes. This raised a whole other set of questions that came earlier, about estuaries and whatnot—the fact that log booms and estuaries provide a place for seals and sea lions to haul out so that they're not susceptible to their predator-prey r

Fisheries committee  Yes, I think those refer to two different things. The marine protected area definition doesn't say that nothing happens there, but by and large it has been used as a way of preventing activities that were contradictory to the overall ecological status of that area. The tricky pa

Fisheries committee  I don't think they're interchangeable. I think that sustainable management refers to a number of different things. It is different from the decision to protect areas over the long run because you want to ensure.... You're protecting a whole variety of different things, whereas su

Fisheries committee  I never give short answers, but my short answer is yes. As someone who has participated in a series of international negotiations—I'm a former foreign service officer—I will tell you that Canada protects its interests by ensuring that it puts forward solutions appropriate to Cana

Fisheries committee  No, I think the same issue is at play. Under the Fisheries Act, I think I'm right in saying, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has the right to close fisheries to everybody for conservation reasons. The wrinkle that appeared in the case of RCAs is that you protect an RCA bec

Fisheries committee  I've had to grapple with this issue, particularly when sitting on a committee dealing with Haida Gwaii and the creation of areas around Haida Gwaii. I have to tell you that some of the problems we faced were in trying to apply the IUCN designations. They did not, to me, seem appr

Fisheries committee  I would agree with you that it's a challenge.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  I can only in this case quote what we were told at the last meeting of the main board of the SFAB, that as long as harvesting by first nations is accepted in those areas, then those areas cannot be defined as marine protected areas. It's a tricky one, because there are some kinds