Good afternoon. My comments will be very brief.
I am involved in the steelhead issue in British Columbia as I was the chair of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, which received a couple of petitions to conduct an emergency assessment under our rules and procedures. I was the one who decided that the preliminary information submitted was sufficient to conduct an emergency assessment.
I chaired the meeting that conducted the emergency assessment, and I and about 25 other people came to the conclusion that the Thompson and Chilcotin rivers' steelhead trout were endangered under the internationally recognized IUCN criteria. We sent a letter to Minister McKenna in February 2018 asking her to initiate an emergency listing of Thompson and Chilcotin steelhead trout.
I'm here simply to make myself available to expatiate on any of that or answer any questions you have about the procedures we used to write that letter to the minister back in February 2018.
That's all I have to say. Thank you.