Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I have three questions. I'm really glad you're here. We're doing a study that interests British Columbians and all Canadians, I think.
First I'm hoping my colleague, Mr. Sopuck, will close his ears for a minute. As a self-proclaiming author and one of the real proponents of this recreational fisheries program, I'm very proud of him and I really like the idea that individual MPs can really change our legislature and the world through an initiative like that, and we've all benefited. Congratulations to you, Mr. Sopuck.
My first question deals with the program. We've heard about the $8 billion and we've heard about how the program has resulted in large-scale funding and about rehabilitation of recreational fisheries. My first question is this, and I'm going to go through all three. Is that the sole source of funding from DFO for recreational fisheries' habitat conservation?
My second relates to tourism, which is a huge source of revenue for our country and certainly for British Columbia. A west coast MP has to be concerned about fisheries and tourism. My question is, given the large number of foreign anglers—you mentioned 400,000 foreign anglers—do our fisheries and tourism departments work together? How do you think we could improve on that?
The third question is how important are our DFO scientists to recreational fisheries? There is a lab in west Vancouver often known as the DFO lab. In my opinion it has some great scientists there. Perhaps we can do better still in how we harness their ability and their expertise to promote our recreational fisheries.