Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses. There's quite a group of you today. It's good to see that this is an important study to you as well.
My background with regard to invasive species goes back a number of years to perch, bass and pumpkinseed fish that were planted in our local, small fishing lakes and basically destroyed the ecosystems in those lakes. Luckily, they were small systems. We were able to treat them with rotenone and restore them to the balance that was there prior to that. However, we're now talking about much bigger systems: the Okanagan system, the Thompson or.... The entire Fraser system is a big part of my riding of North Okanagan—Shuswap, so I want to make sure that we can do whatever we can.
My concerns are around making sure that the resources are there so that we can effectively prevent infestations. We've seen the Auditor General's report and the diagram in there that shows the cost of prevention being so minuscule compared to the cost of eventual treatment years down the road.
Along those lines, Mr. MacIsaac, Ms. Wallin and anybody else who wants to quickly chime in, do you see clear mandates for the responsible ministers, whether they're federal or provincial, for protection against aquatic invasive species in the way of protection for fish stocks and other ecosystems dependent on it?
Mr. MacIsaac, would you like to start?