There are two ways of looking at it. We have put significant money in the budget this year--two years up front and more over a five-year period--to work with the aquaculture industry to plan and move forward. We've met with them since I've been here. I'm a supporter of aquaculture, but not to the detriment of the wild fish. I think they can go hand in hand. They certainly have in other areas.
The wild fishery cannot meet the needs of the world for food products any more. We see other countries moving forward in aquaculture and providing a tremendous amount of work for people who perhaps had a history in the wild fishery and can easily adjust. To take a 60-year-old and put him in school to teach him computers, as we tried to do, or expect him to pack up his family and move to Alberta from Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, or Newfoundland, is not the way to do it, when five miles up the road he can be involved in the fishery. Instead of working for eight or ten weeks, he can be involved in the fishery year round. In Bill Matthews' area we see that happening every day. There are 200 people involved at Cooke Aquaculture alone and another 100 are being hired. That's not even counting the spinoff, making nets, etc. So the potential of aquaculture is just phenomenal.
A lot of the money we have put in will be used to do the science, but it's not that the science isn't being done. If you talk to the main aquaculture people, they're heavily involved in it. Whether it's at the BIO institute in Nova Scotia or in St. Andrews in New Brunswick, a lot of work is being done on aquaculture.
You mentioned a study that shows fewer wild salmon now around fish farms, but there are fewer wild salmon, period. Where there are no fish farms, the correlation is almost the same. We are having problems with our wild stock, and it's not because of aquaculture. Is there some effect? Are there more sea lice? Any studies we have done show that's not having a major effect, if any effect. Do we need to do more work on it? Absolutely. If it is a concern, let's find out as much as we can. Let's alleviate any problems that are there.
But the problem with wild salmon is on both the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast. We are seeing a downturn in many of the rivers. We're seeing that the predictions we used to make on returns a few years ago within percentage points are way off these days. The percentage of salmon that go out are not coming back.
Migration patterns, water temperatures, predation--we know all of those things are having an effect. Specifically what's causing the major concerns are the things we have to find out, and we're working hard on that. There seems to be a healthy return in the more northern rivers, yet in the more southern areas we're seeing a downturn. Are salmon migrating in different routes? Are they not coming back to the river of choice? These are the things we're trying to find out.
The money will be spent to try to get as much information as we can about the correlation between farmed fish and wild fish to make sure there is no damage. It's great to say there's none, but let's be positive that there isn't so we can have one industry that enhances the other, rather than bringing it down.