Fisheries committee  Eco-certification isn't something that we looked at, but certification does rely on good-quality data in the same way that sustainable management decisions require good-quality data. I'm afraid that I can't give you any more detail than that in terms of certifications for susta

Fisheries committee  We've been talking mainly about the importance of good data and reliable data—dependable and timely data—for decisions to sustainably manage a fishery. As you point out, having data that's reliable and dependable also gets better buy-in from regulated communities. They're more co

Fisheries committee  I'm glad I brought the action plan from our 2016 audit with me, because I'm growing a little bit frustrated too. If you look at the responses to our 2016 report, there's reason for optimism. There are commitments to do something. If you look at the responses to the audit from t

Fisheries committee  I would agree completely. The science, the catch data and the enforcement are all integral parts of the sustainable management of a fishery. These are all procedural measures, so we would also want to look at the results: How have things gone? The cod example is well known to e

Fisheries committee  You're getting at the issue of modernization of their system, the information management system.

Fisheries committee  This is the second time around for us in recommending improvements in that regard. We have our 2023 report on that, and also a 2016 report. We agree with you on modernizing their system, and not only modernizing it but integrating it. Recall the answer to the question from Memb

Fisheries committee  Yes, sustainable management is the ultimate objective.

Fisheries committee  We looked at the catch data in this audit. We may look at the science in another audit to come.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I've been following that. On the catch data, we found enough deficiencies to prevent us from doing a lot in the second line of inquiry of our audit, which was to ask how well the data is used to sustainably manage fisheries. If we had seen good data, we could have made a be

Fisheries committee  It's self-reporting, but there are also third party observers. There are different sets of—

Fisheries committee  Yes, that's the model they've chosen to operate. They could have kept it in-house and have, essentially, a fleet of DFO staff doing this sort of thing, but they outsourced it to the—

Fisheries committee  To your point, two important aspects of this audit and our previous audit are that, one, we didn't see enough resources going into the implementation of the monitoring policy that was produced in 2019, and that's set out in exhibit 9.2. Then, with respect to enforcement, in our a

Fisheries committee  Yes. If we don't learn from the past, we may be at risk of being doomed to repeat it. We don't see the likelihood of a repeat of the incredible negative impacts of the collapse of the cod, because there's no single fishery of that size and importance anymore in Canada, but if you

Fisheries committee  Yes. I'll introduce our answer to that, and then I'll turn it over to Monsieur Normand for more detail. Part of our role as auditors within the Office of the Auditor General of Canada is to check on these assertions made by departments. We had assertions about both timeliness a

Fisheries committee  I've been commissioner now for a little over three years within the Office of the Auditor General, and it troubles me that had I been commissioner seven years ago when our office last looked at this issue, I would be saying some of the same things then as I'm saying now. There's