I just have some short comments here.
In terms of aquaculture, I'm starting to learn a bit about it. I think the two greatest benefits of aquaculture, the way it is, is that it reduces pressure on the wild stocks and the fact there's no bycatch. I would recommend that the department use those two points in its communications on aquaculture because those, to me, are very significant benefits that are underappreciated.
I'll echo Fin Donnelly's comments and say that I'd like to see a lot more monitoring of fish stocks, not only on the coasts but also across the country. For example, I look at the Freshwater Institute in Manitoba. I think much of what they do could be reprofiled to focus on fish. There's a lot of generalized environmental research being done there that is interesting, but Manitobans and many people across the country are really interested in the health of fish stocks. So I'd ask you to think about that.
My last point is a bit of good news. We're all prone around this table to come at you with bad news. But on the good news front, I had the pleasure of spending a few days fishing the Miramichi this fall with a representative from the Atlantic Salmon Federation. We didn't catch too many Atlantic salmon, but we talked about them anyway, and I gather that across much of Atlantic Canada the rebound of the Atlantic salmon stocks is nothing short of remarkable. And I was very interested to hear about the relationship your department has with the Atlantic Salmon Federation and the collaborative effort and research being done.
In terms of the Atlantic salmon in particular, can you talk about what you've done over the last decade that has contributed to the rebound in the stocks over much of Atlantic Canada? It's truly a conservation success story, and I think you should start to take some credit for it.