OTTAWA - The process for making offshore sites off-limits to major industry is so ensnared in red tape that some bureaucrats doubt Canada will fulfil an international pledge to create a network of protected areas by 2012.
Dozens of public servants lament lags of seven years or more before a marine site is designated a protected area in a report released Wednesday by the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society.
At that pace, officials were skeptical Canada could meet an international obligation to have a national network of protected marine sites in place in four years' time.
"Government is still saying it is targeting to complete our international commitment for 2012," said one official.
"There is no way under existing conditions we will make it."
Canada ratified an international treaty called the Convention on Biological Diversity in 1993, as well as subsequent commitments, agreeing to create a network of protected marine areas by 2012.
To date, the federal government has designated 10 areas as protected - meaning they're off-limits to major industry such as mining, seismic testing and bottom trawling.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada spokesman Phil Jenkins said the department expects to designate another 10 marine sites as protected by 2012.
But the society said just 2,700 square kilometres - a fraction of Canada's six million square kilometres of ocean territory - have been designated as protected since the treaty came into force.
Sabine Jessen, who manages the society's oceans and great freshwater lakes program, said she's not confident Canada will be able to meet the 2012 target.
"Given that we do a site at a time, and some of them take 10 years, some of them have taken over 20, there's no way the way we're doing it right now," she said.
Government officials in the report cited lengthy public consultations as the biggest bottleneck.
"There are expectations that you please all the stakeholders," said one.
"You can have everyone in the room and you won't have consensus on everything but that doesn't mean you don't go ahead."
Some officials said the federal government tries too hard to appease everyone, which bogs down the process.
Data gathering, mapping, internal government reviews and regulatory and parliamentary approval also backlog the process, the report said.
Fisheries Minister Loyola Hearn conceded there have been delays in getting some areas designated as protected sites.
"Are some of them, at least, taking longer than they should? Yes. Are we finding ways of fast-tracking that? Absolutely," he said in an interview.
Hearn says it's not always apparent to outsiders how much co-ordination goes into the process.
Two federal departments - Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada - and an agency, Parks Canada, are mandated to establish and manage marine protected areas.
There are also First Nations communities and other stakeholders that need to be consulted.
The society's report is based on 59 interviews with government officials and environmental groups.
The group spoke with 34 federal bureaucrats and eight officials from provincial and territorial agencies on the condition their names wouldn't appear in the report.
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