Canada’s aquatic ecosystems are important, shared resources that help sustain life and provide tremendous economic, social, cultural, and ecological benefits. Indigenous peoples have been fishing for thousands of years in Canada's oceans, along its coasts, in lakes, and in rivers. Today, fish and fish habitat face many threats. These include:

• habitat modification and degradation
• aquatic invasive species
• overexploitation of fish
• pollution
• climate change

To manage the impacts to fish and fish habitat, the Fish and Fish Habitat Protection provisions of the Fisheries Act are administered by Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s (DFO’s) Fish and Fish Habitat Protection Program and are key federal statutes for:

• regulating fisheries resources
• conserving and protecting fish and fish habitat
• regulating economic development in and around Canadian waters by managing impacts to fish and fish habitat

This website will be a main source of information for the upcoming engagement activities. Here you will find:

• Supporting and background documents needed to participate, including:
  • Discussion papers
  • Fact Sheets
  • Presentations
• Opportunities to provide feedback
• Frequently asked questions about all discussion topics
• Engagement summaries of what we heard from targeted Indigenous, stakeholder and partner organizations will be posted and publicly available.

Learn more about how the engagement platform operates.

This platform also houses specific activities that are designed for registered users who are targeted Indigenous, partner and stakeholder organizations that work with DFO on a regular basis and may be directly affected by the proposed products. These activities are technical in nature and can only be undertaken by those who have been registered by DFO. If you are not registered, and you work with FFHPP on a regular basis please send us an email.

Please come back to the engagement platform frequently for opportunities to participate, share, and learn.