Fisheries committee  I know I'm sounding repetitive, but again, where there is scientific evidence that promotes a healthy and abundant seal population, we manage this species for a commercial seal harvest. There is an active harvest. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, we saw that this year, there was an increase in landings of up to 9.5% compared to previous years.

Fisheries committee  We are in constant contact with our U.S. counterparts on a number of fronts, including with regard to their Marine Mammal Protection Act. We are waiting for the comparability findings that should be coming out at the end of the year. On this front, we're constantly talking about marine mammals in the context of, for example, North Atlantic right whales and the impact of their unintentional entanglement in Canadian waters due to Canadian fisheries.

Fisheries committee  Part of the consideration is that the MMPA does not outlaw our regulated commercial seal hunt. It affects only the unintentional killing of marine mammals as we undertake other commercial fishing activities. In terms of our seal hunt, there is no question that the MMPA does not apply.

Fisheries committee  We do have an action strategy, and that strategy is to get the scientific information we need in order to undertake another avenue. So far, as I mentioned, the only direct evidence we have of the impact of predation is with grey seals on cod in the southern gulf.

Fisheries committee  I think in the Canadian context we have a very robust and open total allowable catch for harps. The question is, if we could take out a number of harp seals—for example, up to 425,000 harps a year—there could be, but I don't know for sure, an impact on the population of harp seals.

Fisheries committee  Based on our sustainable fisheries framework, we have the information to manage seals for a sustainable harvest. However, I mentioned all of those facets of how to manage at an ecosystem level, and that is where we would rely more on needed scientific evidence of where those relationships are in the ecosystem.

Fisheries committee  I will turn back to some of my opening remarks about putting out a call for proposals on science, and maybe I can turn to my colleague here to speak to it. That's part of the progression forward to understand better some of the, perhaps, science needs we have in order to develop a better system for understanding what role seals are playing in the ecosystem.

Fisheries committee  It's for cod.

Fisheries committee  That's in the southern gulf.

Fisheries committee  It is in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in what they call the NAFO division 4T.

Fisheries committee  In terms of assuring productivity, that is part of our precautionary approach to fisheries management. We want to ensure that the stocks are continually being maintained in a healthy state to ensure that we can harvest them in a sustainable manner. As I mentioned earlier, something we're looking at and starting to use more in our fishery management decisions is the ecosystem approach to fisheries management, whereby we're looking at this on a bit of a grander scale.

Fisheries committee  We do have a very robust advisory committee process. We had the seal summit back in November. We hear a lot from our stakeholder community about what they're seeing on the water. Oftentimes they are seeing different things—for example, large pools of fish that are currently under moratorium or other things that are different from what our DFO science is reporting on.

Fisheries committee  Understood. In our fisheries management decisions, as I said, we do rely on the empirical evidence-based results from science processes that are peer-reviewed, and we rely on the expertise of not only our science but—

Fisheries committee  I would say that management is continually evolving. For example, we're looking at ways to incorporate more of an ecosystem-based approach to management.

Fisheries committee  As I said, our science is always providing the best knowledge at any given point in time to make our decisions.