Thank you for coming. I find what you had to present just now truly quite interesting.
The study that we're having in the Great Lakes, and with your expertise as well in the St. Lawrence.... Considering where you're located, you probably have some experience on the St. Lawrence River Valley as well.
You've said, Mr. Ricciardi, that we have a difficult time with getting a grasp on just how many invasive species have entered into Canadian waters at this point. And you said we might be getting better at detecting them and that might be one of the reasons why we're detecting more. But I'm wondering to what extent the DFO is taking this seriously and actually actively seeking out invasive species. With all the cutbacks recently at the DFO, scientists are getting laid off at
at the Institut Maurice-Lamontagne in Mont-Joli,
and other scientists as well have received their pink slips or notices of dismissal. My concern is that we're going to become much worse at detecting invasive species because the scientists are simply not there to do the science.
So you're doing some of this work now. Your funding, I'm taking it, is largely provincial—