Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to our guests this evening. This is very informative. As my colleague Mr. Weston said, the challenge is in trying to separate the wheat from the chaff—as they say on the prairies.
I'm new to the committee, coming from the Okanagan Valley. We enjoy consuming the fish from the ocean—we fish more the Kokanee—and a lot of sport fishermen from my riding like going to the coast. But I have also had concerns expressed to me by constituents about the fish farms.
I want to go back a little to the whole issue of closed containment. As I read about it, it's basically a system of fish production that creates a controlled interface between the cultured fish and the natural environment.
My question would be to maybe Ms. Dane or Mrs. Cannon—no relation; we just met this evening. We may have to do our family tree, with the vowel change somewhere along the immigration process from Scotland. I appreciate your answers this evening, and maybe you could elaborate a little bit more from the industry perspective.
I had a chance today with the committee to go first-hand to West Coast Fish Culture and meet with Ward Griffioen, who seems to be a real leader and visionary in the industry. The number he gave for the footprint in going to closed containment could be up to 800 times more costly in its impact on our ecology and in energy consumption.
I'm wondering whether your industry has done any sort of analysis of the impact of closed containment. That seems to be the answer from the public's perspective, even from the sports fishermen's, but is it a realistic option?