It is highly productive and highly sustainable, and yet they feared it was being considered as a marine protected area. That area has been fished continuously for decades.

The halibut were there in such high numbers that the fishermen could go out safely in good weather, catch their quotas and come back. There was one area that was referred to locally as “the kitchen”, because that was where the local fishermen went to catch the greatest portion of their total allowable catch for halibut. There was talk of closures of areas off the Pacific coast. We talked to fishermen on the west coast, and again, they wanted input. Furthermore, sections 29 to 33 of the current Oceans Act explicitly outline required consultations.Īfter we finished touring the Maritimes, we toured the west coast and the north. We consult on an ongoing basis to provide input to the development of the management plan for an area, and of course, MPAs are collaboratively managed with local partners once designated. There is also a 30-day public comment period when the regulations are pre-published in the Canada Gazette. We consult and collaborate with a wide range of governments and marine resource users as well as other stakeholders, experts and the public at various stages, including the following: at the outset, to select an area of interest when gathering information needed about the ecological importance of a sensitive marine area, the socio-economic conditions related to the area and any current or planned activities that may be of concern when identifying initial boundaries and conservation objectives for an area based on the best available science, including traditional and local knowledge and a risk analysis and when developing a proposed regulatory approach and studying the benefits and costs of such an approach.

Calibre collision signal hill ca