Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I think my colleague, Mr. Toone, raised a good point about non-native species, that some are good and some are bad, as it turns out. It's my understanding, for example, that rainbow trout is not native to the Great Lakes, but it was introduced and I think we're pleased about that. We wouldn't be so pleased if we'd introduced something that turned out to be harmful.
I'm not a scientist, but I would guess that when you introduce something—a non-native species—even something as apparently benign as rainbow trout, that you won't know all of the effects on the ecosystem until it's been there a while. I think it's also true, as the saying goes, that one man's trash is another man's treasure. As we heard from an earlier witness, sea lamprey, for example, we hate in the Great Lakes, but in Portugal it's a delicacy, and an important economic fishery for other parts of the Atlantic as well. Yet it's causing nothing but harm in the Great Lakes. Obviously, it's a very difficult task, because some things are introduced and other things make their way naturally, and others through human sources.
My understanding is that a species of eel called the American eel is being considered for listing both in Canada and the U.S., and I think perhaps is already listed under provincial legislation in Ontario. I think it's declining in Lake Ontario, if I understand correctly.
Would it be affected at all by the sea lamprey control program? Would we be trying to kill sea lampreys and at the same time having negative effects on other species like the American eel, for example?