Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm going to start off with the issue of seals that was just discussed there. I'm glad it was raised, because it is a concern: seal predation on our salmon stocks.
Fishermen in my riding have a tough competition trying to get their salmon in—I'm talking about the sport fishermen now, on the east side of the island. If they do hook one, sometimes those seals follow that salmon right up there and he's lucky to pull in the head. I know one man, at least, who ran his boat up on the rocks on an island trying to get his salmon back from a seal that was headed that way. So it is an issue. I'm laughing about it, but it is becoming a serious issue.
Taking it beyond seals, in regard to one of their cousins, the California sea lion, the increase in populations on the west coast is becoming a real concern. You'd probably be aware that a new problem has developed with the sea lions going after the aquaculture nets here. We have one company in particular, out of Tofino, Creative Salmon Company, which is renowned, in spite of the negative connotation for salmon aquaculture, for doing local Pacific species. They're doing chinook, and they don't use chemicals. They do it naturally. But with the predation from these animals now, with the double nets.... There have been a number of incidents where they will charge the nets and get the salmon to one side and will actually bite through the net and catch the salmon on one side. So they've double-walled the nets. Recently, they've managed to get between the nets and get trapped in there. But these animals are so hungry, they are going after the aquaculture salmon and are quite determined. It is becoming quite a serious problem. So I just put that on the radar.
In our discussions about science, I know it's a good question to ask: We don't seem to have a lot of money going to aquaculture, but are there any attempts being made to help the aquaculture industry in developing better technology to deal with these kinds of predatory problems? Maybe that's a place to start.