Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First, as a member of the committee, I am going to declare I have no biases when it comes to the Atlantic salmon fishery, but I'm curious, and I'm curious for a number of reasons.
I've read a lot of the reports and studies that have been done on the issue. It's an issue that has been around for a little over 20 years, as we're here now in 2015. From the charts given to us by Fisheries and Oceans Canada, it appears the stocks literally dropped off the cliff around 1990 and have flatlined to this date. In listening to reasons that may account for this, the only consistency that I've heard is “could be”, “may be”, “unsure”, and “ don't know”. I find it amazing that after 20 years, with the expertise that exists, we cannot identify more than two issues that affected this dramatic decline.
I'm directing my observations to Dr. Hutchings and I would be curious to get a comment from Mr. Roach as well.