Concerning closed containment, a legislative committee was established by the premier in British Columbia. The premier, in his wisdom, decided that the majority on the legislative committee should be from the New Democratic Party and the minority from the government party, the Liberals. They held hearings all over the province. I am not saying that was a bad thing to do, but it was one thing that we did not do because we knew exactly what we were going to get.
The nastiness between “pro” fish farm people and “anti” fish farm people in British Columbia is remarkable. There is no use pretending it isn't there. All you have to do is pay a little bit of attention and you will find it is there. We certainly avoided having public meetings that would have just resulted in a great row with both sides shouting at each other.
But this legislative committee did that and they came up with a majority recommendation--remember, the NDP had the majority, and the Liberals didn't agree with them--that all fish farms should be closed containment and it should be done within a certain number of years or else they should be closed down.
The problem with this is what do you mean by closed containment? There has been a closed containment operation going on, on Vancouver Island under a gentleman named Buchanan, for some time, trying to persuade everybody that it can be done in the ocean. I've been there, I've looked at it, and I've talked to the people who were working on it. And it wasn't really closed containment. If closed containment is to work, it has to keep the sea lice out and keep the sea lice in, those that do get in, plus anything else.
So what has really happened is that the proponents of closed containment have shifted their position to, yes, closed containment, but on land. Now the industry and others have said this would cost too much. There are other people in the private sector who are working very hard to persuade others that closed containment on land is economically feasible. And I don't know whether it is or not. But what we wanted to do was stop the shouting at each other and get an independent committee to sit down and ask if we could operate these things on closed containment. If it's in the ocean and you can really do it, fine. If you can't, can you do it on land?
What we said is that this government and industry should get together and find out whether it is possible to do it. And there are reasons for that. First of all, if you can get closed containment to work, then you almost eliminate the sea lice issue and that is very good for the fish farms. But it's also very good for the fish. So closed containment is something we believe should be pursued.
If it costs some money to pursue it, it's still worth it, because, as Ruth Salmon and Clare Backman know perfectly well and expressed to you, there is value in the fish farm industry on the west coast. But we've got to do it in such a way that it's acceptable to most Canadians, and one of the ways would be to find an effective closed containment system.