I understand that the committee is actually visiting some closed containment farms in Washington State. As I mentioned when I spoke, there is the opportunity to be, I think for Canada's sake, a world leader in this and still have salmon farming and grow the business and at the same time have an opportunity to protect our wild salmon.
An interesting comment I didn't get a chance to make in my presentation was that the managing director of British Columbia's largest salmon farming company, Marine Harvest Canada, Vincent Erenst, said in an interview published by the Courier-Islander on December 24, 2009, that the company was working towards closed containment pilot studies but so far had not been able to convince either the feds or the provincial government to support that.
What I would say, which takes me back here, is that there is an opportunity to grow the salmon farming industry and make it environmentally sustainable and continue to have the benefit of the jobs that are created and at the same time protect our wild salmon and be a world leader. The technology is out there. It just doesn't seem that there's the will to do this. I think moving forward, if you as parliamentarians would carry that message back to Ottawa, we have an opportunity to have a win-win situation.