With respect to the program, as I mentioned, the budget allocation was provided to the department in a five-year timeframe. The five-year timeframe comes to an end at the end of this fiscal year; it sunsets.
If the government chooses to not renew the program or extend it as part of its budgetary process, there are four program areas that would be affected. The first is those activities we undertake now to build and expand and improve the regulatory framework, environment, and management for the aquaculture sector.
The second major program that would be affected is our science work with respect to aquaculture, which has approximately half the program's current financial allocation.
The third part of the program that would be affected is what we call innovation and market access, which funds technology development and sustainability with respect to the sector.
The fourth element of the program that would be affected is our sustainability reporting initiative, which seeks to report on the sustainability of the sector overall.
All of those entail people, activities, a whole variety of things. It is approximately half of the department's resources that are currently allocated to aquaculture, which would be lost if that program were to disappear.
The department would obviously have some significant challenges to address in terms of how we would move forward with aquaculture in the environment, in that context. We would have to work our way through that. We would be in a position to make some decisions as to how we would do so once we receive whatever is in the budget. At this point we're planning on a roughly status quo track. If things were to change, obviously we would adjust.
The second part of your question has to do with the use of open-net pen activities in British Columbia.
The department is a regulator and a manager of aquaculture. We don't have an expansion plan. It's not our role. We're not the industry. The industry will come forward with whatever proposals it has. The department will treat those as it does any other regulatory activity. If people choose to submit proposals for expansion in activities in British Columbia, those will be treated through our normal regulatory process. We don't have something in place that says we're proposing that the industry expand in a particular way, time, or place. It's not our role to do that.