Hon. Marc Gold (Government Representative in the Senate): Thank you for the question. The government knows and understands that the global ocean plays a vital role in regulating the earth’s climate and absorbing carbon. We must keep that in mind as we develop and implement our adaptation measures. If we are to create a truly climate-resilient Canada for future generations, we must ensure that our oceans remain healthy and resilient.

I’m advised that the government has been in conversations with the Ocean Frontier Institute on this issue and looks forward to continuing these discussions to better understand how the government can expand its work to maximize the ocean’s contribution to carbon sequestration.

Hon. Mary Coyle: Senator Gold, on November 8, I attended a COP 27 panel at the Canada Pavilion on the importance of deep blue carbon. We know that the ocean is the most significant global storage depot of carbon on earth. It holds 50 times more carbon than the atmosphere, soaking up more emissions than all the world’s rainforests combined and that the North Atlantic is the most intense carbon sink on the planet. Of carbon, 90% is deep blue carbon, and the panel identified this as the “deep blue hole” in the Paris Agreement — a problematic gap.

Senator Gold, Canada’s Ocean Frontier Institute, led by Dr. Anya Waite, is spearheading an international initiative to observe, understand and predict the ocean carbon system in order to make more fully informed climate decisions. Other nations are aligning with this vision, and international conversations at COP 27 supported the creation of a North Atlantic carbon observatory.

Senator Gold, as Mark Carney and others have said, we cannot mitigate what we cannot measure. Will Canada take a leadership role in supporting this critically important climate initiative?