If we want to envision co-management by first nations on a fishery in British Columbia, we have to first accept that there are incremental and cumulative impacts to the fish. That's not something we saw embraced by the previous government. I'm hoping it's one of the things we're advancing with the existing government.
Consider for a moment that there is no knowledge about where Chief Joe Alphonse's sockeye goes when it leaves the Fraser River. It just leaves the river. We have the Pacific Salmon Foundation doing some great work through the Salish Sea marine survival project, where they have tagged, tracked, and mapped outward-migrating wild salmon smolts. Now we have a sense of where they're going. If we could expand that coast-wide, we would develop a fundamental and important management piece for wild salmon in the most critical portion of its life cycle. I've advanced this with Minister LeBlanc.
If we could expand Dr. Kristi Miller's lab in DFO to do real-time genetic analysis, we could then do sampling of these smolts as they go out on their migration route and get real-time impact identification through her work.
Whether it's a fish farm, a mining operation, a logging operation, or a garbage dump that's seeping into the river, we can then identify what needs to be changed in terms of the early management of these fish, so that when they get out in more numbers to the ocean, there's a greater opportunity for them to return.
We're making use of leading-edge science. Who better situated to do that than first nations people who live in these isolated territories, have the knowledge of the lands and the rivers, and have the access to accomplish this? We could fulfill the goals that this government has now put in front of us in terms of science-based decision-making.
Mr. Simms, I can see you're getting antsy.