Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
Two important points from your comments stood out for me.
First of all, Chief Louis, you mentioned the holistic approach. Our study, however, runs completely counter to a holistic approach, a fact that I have criticized since the beginning. We are dealing only with terrestrial habitat, when we should be adopting a holistic approach. As you mentioned, a bear needs fish to survive, for example. So it's not possible to simply address one aspect of a national conservation plan.
The second thing I took away is a point you made, Mr. McNeely, about how we define certain words, like conservation. That's an important consideration if we are going to apply these concepts properly.
The second question our study is designed to answer, at point b, is whether Canada has publicly available knowledge and expertise on habitat conservation. And yet, there have been tremendous cuts to science in recent years. In your publication, which I have started reading through, you say that “Canada has laid off 1,047 employees at Natural Resources Canada, Environment Canada, and Fisheries and Oceans Canada since April 2012”.
With that in mind, I want to ask all of you this question. Do you think the federal government is making adequate efforts to establish sound and appropriate science to meet the challenges of conservation?
I am not sure whether Mr. McNeely would like to go first.