Hon. David M. Wells: Minister Murray, as you’re aware, lost, abandoned and discarded fishing gear, also known as ghost gear, is the number one type of marine debris in the world. Last summer, I recognize the government invested an additional $10 million in funding towards the Ghost Gear Fund to help remove thousands of units of ghost gear from our waters.

Hon. David M. Wells: Minister Murray, as you’re aware, lost, abandoned and discarded fishing gear, also known as ghost gear, is the number one type of marine debris in the world. Last summer, I recognize the government invested an additional $10 million in funding towards the Ghost Gear Fund to help remove thousands of units of ghost gear from our waters.

Minister, with the changing climate, this is not enough. With the stronger seas and annual ice conditions that damage fixed and mobile gear, will the government invest even more for the identification and removal of the increasing volumes of ghost gear?

Hon. Margaret Dawn Anderson: Minister Murray, your government is investing $7.46 million to the co-management of marine protected areas in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. However, no plans have been announced to conduct stock assessments, bathymetric surveys or other fundamental ecosystem studies despite consistent requests from nearby communities, scientists and hunter and trapper committees.

Hon. Margaret Dawn Anderson: Minister Murray, your government is investing $7.46 million to the co-management of marine protected areas in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region. However, no plans have been announced to conduct stock assessments, bathymetric surveys or other fundamental ecosystem studies despite consistent requests from nearby communities, scientists and hunter and trapper committees.

The research vessel Nahidik II, operated by the non-profit Arctic Research Foundation, or ARF, serves communities in the region. ARF has offered to invest its own money in the project and can conduct the work more cost effectively and with less environmental impact; however, it would require an investment of $1.5 million from the federal government. This investment would enable crucial stock assessments, scientific studies and foster traditional and cultural knowledge.

Will you commit to working with the communities and the Arctic Research Foundation to bring sufficient funding to the region to complete stock assessments and begin baseline ecosystem studies in the marine protected areas within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region?

Hon. Joyce Murray, P.C., M.P., Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard: Thank you for that question. I couldn’t agree more that this is a very important program, and I was pleased that out of the Fiona funding, there is approximately $30 million in addition to the $10 million that the senator mentioned for removing ghost gear.

I just want to tell you, I was recently on a vacation for a week with my family in Ecuador, and on a trip out to an island off a relatively remote part of the country, my daughter saw a large sea turtle with ghost gear wrapped around its neck and fins. It was an awful sight. The people from the boat, the crew, lifted it into the boat and spent a half an hour cutting off the fishing line and the floats for this turtle to be able to be taken to the rehabilitation centre. For me, it was a first-hand look at what ghost gear can do to vulnerable other species.

We’ll continue to invest in that and work with the local communities and Indigenous communities to do that work of removing the ghost gear out of the waters. For the North Atlantic right whale, this is a very important part of our protection of that endangered species as well.

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