First of all, I think the key to keep in mind with respect to the department's interest in sea lice is that the department has a substantial investment in salmon biology, or salmon biologists as a better way of putting it, and so on, who are very concerned with the status of populations and have spent a lot of time looking at any potential threat to wild salmon populations. Part of the natural avenue of inquiry has taken them to sea lice issues.
The department has two full-time research scientists who are looking at it. I'd say 75% to 80% of their time is devoted to sea lice issues. It's not parsed up exactly—I don't keep a little pad—but it's in that ballpark. There are a couple of technicians as well. There are data collection programs out there to sample lice, and so on.
I mentioned earlier in response to one of the questions in round one that, as part of the department's new budget allocation for aquaculture in 2008, the department received a substantial amount of money for a component called the program for aquaculture regulatory research. The way the financial program was structured, it was back-end loaded, so to speak. The fiscal year we're ending right now is year two of the program. The research funds for the program kick up substantially in years three, four, and five, so there will be more research resources going into British Columbia starting April 1. Those again are booked; they're not a theoretical type of thing. So the amount of energy devoted to sea lice research will go up in B.C.
Has it been sufficient to date? I don't think there's such thing as sufficient research on an area that's just so complex. I think we've done a good job. I think probably every member of DFO in the Pacific region would prefer that we had more opportunity to look at that issue in more depth, but I think it has been pretty solid.