Fisheries committee  First and foremost, we understand and recognize that some activities can occur within marine protected areas, but it's important to ensure that the activities that do occur do not contravene the conservation objective of a marine protected area. As Paul mentioned, from minimum st

Fisheries committee  Absolutely. When we talk about meaningful protection, we mean having minimum standards for MPAs set in advance, and—

Fisheries committee  Well, I believe there's a great opportunity, with the amendments to the Oceans Act, for the Government of Canada to set and legislate standards through the Oceans Act in creating marine protected area regulations.

Fisheries committee  The IUCN has standards for marine protected areas and defines six categories of marine protected areas. Those categories include areas that can be used for multiple use, so it's not a given that all MPAs have to restrict all human activity.

Fisheries committee  I don't have any quantifiable numbers on the effects or impacts of oil and gas activities on the ecosystem, but there are very strong signs to show that there are effects from both seismic exploration and also exploitation in terms of production and drilling. There's certainly a

Fisheries committee  I appreciate that those decisions have to be based in sound science, and I would be happy to provide the committee with some objective, quantifiable evidence of the impacts of oil and gas activities on the ecosystem.