Fisheries committee  That was mentioned by me.

Fisheries committee  I believe there is a website for them. We can provide a link.

Fisheries committee  Yes, definitely. It has been very useful in the context of MPAs in particular in terms of helping to define the environmentally sensitive areas and to provide advice to the oceans group as well as to the fisheries management group as to the boundaries and areas that should be protected or would be best protected in an MPA context.

Fisheries committee  Depending upon where they are, of course, there are a lot of migratory stocks, from halibut to sailfish to salmon. In providing some refuge from commercial fishers in some of these areas that they may be transiting, you are providing a refuge from capture. I don't know what the measurable benefit would be, but it seems logical to me that it would provide some benefit to those migratory stocks.

Fisheries committee  Steelhead is a provincially managed species, but we have been working very closely with our provincial colleagues to try to address some of the concerns for the South Thompson steelhead, which is in some critical state in terms of its returns this year, and also some other steelhead stocks in northern British Columbia.

Fisheries committee  We do have a very structured agent process with our client sectors, with licence-holders and such. Much of the consultation planning goes through regularly scheduled meetings. Within Pacific Region A, we also have a consultation secretariat that helps to maintain a calendar of ongoing consultations that occur across multiple programs.

Fisheries committee  I would just add that I think one of the critical things indigenous groups bring forward to us is how we include or consider some of their traditional ecological knowledge in our consultative process, in terms of what areas they consider to be ecologically sensitive, in addition to other science views as to what is ecologically sensitive.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I would agree. I think a broad consultation strategy should very clearly lay out how you go about it—plan the time frame, set up meetings, etc.—so the client sectors have information ahead of time to plan to be able to attend the meetings and contribute meaningfully. I think those things would help to have a better-informed consultative process.

Fisheries committee  I would add that part of the value of the consultation process is to ensure that we have a greater understanding of the activities that the sector groups—the fishers—are actually doing and what impact those specific activities may have on the environmentally sensitive areas of the proposed MPAs.

Fisheries committee  I'm sorry. I don't mean to interrupt. We do provide funding to organizations such as the Marine Conservation Caucus, which is a collection of environmental [Technical difficulty—Editor] in British Columbia. We do support some of their activities in terms of consultation with the department.