They range from an address by Fred Mifflin, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, launching Oceans Day ceremonies on Saturday in Halifax, to a walk by Winnipeg secondary school students across five kilometres of solid ice to the edge of an ice floe in Hudson Bay. Oceans Day, a Canadian initiative, was first declared in 1992 during the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, to raise public awareness of the role oceans play in all our lives.
Oceans regulate the world's climate and provide more oxygen than the rain forests.
What we do on land can make a difference in the health of the world's oceans. The oceans are crucial to the well-being of the world. They must be respected and maintained for present and future generations. Increasingly, Canadians are asking that we place oceans high on the national agenda. Our country has the world's longest coastline, bordering on three oceans.