I now call this meeting to order.
Welcome to meeting number 15 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, May 26, 2020, Standing Order 108(2) and the motion adopted by the committee on Tuesday, February 25, 2020, the committee is resuming its study of the state of Pacific salmon.
Today's meeting is taking place by video conference. The proceedings are public and are made available via the House of Commons website. So you are aware, the webcast will show the person speaking rather than the entire committee.
Regular members know this by now, but for the benefit of our witnesses who are participating in a House of Commons virtual committee meeting for the first time, I will remind you all of a few rules that we like to follow.
Interpretation in this video conference will work very much like it does in a regular committee meeting. You have the choice, at the bottom of your screen, of floor, English or French. As you are speaking, if you plan to alternate from one language to the other, you will need to also switch the interpretation channel so that it aligns with the language you are speaking. You may want to allow for a short pause when switching languages.
Before speaking, please wait until I recognize you by name. When you are ready to speak, you can click on the microphone icon to activate your mike.
Should members have a point of order, they should activate their mike and state that they have a point of order. If a member wishes to intervene on a point of order that has been raised by another member, I encourage him or her to use the “raise hand” function. To do so, you should click on “participants” at the bottom of the screen. When the list pops up, you will see, next to your name, that you can pick “raise hand”. This will signal to me, the chair, your interest in speaking and will keep the names in chronological order.
When you are not speaking, your mike should be on mute. The use of headsets is strongly encouraged. Finally, when speaking, please speak slowly and clearly. That's the one I have trouble with.
Should any technical challenge arise, for example in relation to interpretation or your audio, please advise the chair immediately and a technical team will work to resolve the problem. Please note that we may need to suspend during these times, as we need to ensure that all members are able to participate fully.
Before we get started, can everyone click on their screen in the top right-hand corner and ensure they are on gallery view? With this view, you should be able to see all the participants in a grid view. It will ensure that all video participants can see one another.
I would now like to welcome our witnesses. As an individual, we have Dan Edwards, fisher, West Coast Aquatic. He is accompanied by Kathy Scarfo, president, West Coast Trollers Association. From Aero Trading Company Limited, we have Brad Mirau. From Whooshh Innovations, we have Vince Bryan, chief executive officer.
We'll get started now with the presentations from the witnesses.
We'll start with Mr. Edwards. You have six minutes.