I think COSEWIC is the body that determines it. They're not looking at, for example, a species being limited to the Latin name, the taxonomy, that way.
They're saying that if you have discrete populations.... For example, there's the sockeye issue with Cultus Lake and Sakinaw Lake. Those were deemed to be discrete because they were genetically differentiated from the other stocks. Even though they're all sockeye, they were treated as a separate population. That's how the act works.