Feasibility Study for the Proposed Southern Strait of Georgia National Marine Conservation Area Reserve

CONSULTATION SUMMARIES

Synopsis of Spring 2007 Marine Mixer Consultations

Five Marine Mixer information sessions were held on southern Vancouver Island and in Vancouver in May and June 2007. The first portion of the information sessions was an evening open house, followed by a presentation and discussion. The Sidney Mixer had extended hours to allow people to attend from the southern Gulf Islands.

Consultation Content and Goal

At the mixers drafts of the vision for the proposed NMCA Reserve, the boundary and the national zoning framework for NMCAs were presented, as was a project update. The goal of the sessions was to involve the public and stakeholders in a public review of the drafts. The drafts will be reworked, incorporating participant feedback, and brought back to the public later in the study.

Attendance

The sessions were attended by 170 people, with 3 people attending two sessions each. Participants spanned a broad range of interests ranging from representatives of commercial fishing groups to members of local yacht clubs. Of the 28 participants that completed a comment form, 23 indicated that they were residents in the region around the proposed boundary, 2 were seasonal residents, 2 did not live in the area and 1 did not provide information. The most popular activities enjoyed by those who completed the comment form were kayaking and sailing. Other activities included swimming, sport fishing, power boating, snorkeling, whale watching and SCUBA diving.

Marine Mixer Venues and Attendance

Advertising and Invitations

The consultation sessions were advertised by public notices in 16 newspapers, including the Victoria Times Colonist, Island Tides and various local papers for a total circulation of approximately 534,000 papers. E-mail and letter invitations ¹ were sent to people in our consultation database. In addition, the consultation sessions were advertised in NMCA E-News and on the project's web pages.

In order to determine if people who attend consultation sessions, are solely from our stakeholder list, or if new people are coming to the sessions, participants were asked if they received an invitation directly from Parks Canada, 141 responded, 51% (n72) had received an invitation directly from Parks Canada and 49% (n69) had not. As a second measure of new people to the project, out of 170 attendees, 97 (57%) of participants who signed in were new to the project and 73 (43%) were registered in the project database.

1 532 letter invitations and 955 e-mail invitations were sent.

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