Thank you, Chair. I appreciate the testimony that I've heard today. I've not only been educated a lot; I've also been entertained at times during this meeting. I appreciate the good nature in which we're discussing a very serious issue.
I think everybody in the room right now wants the same thing. They want the protection, longevity and health of wild Pacific salmon. I don't think anybody here wants anything but that.
I'm going to ask along a bit of a different line of questioning. When it comes to abundance, Mr. Hardie and I would agree on this particular point—that the issue is abundance. Commercial fishermen tell us that DFO has mismanaged and that there's no more abundance. Sport fishing and recreational fishers would say that DFO has mismanaged and there is no abundance anymore. Of course, first nations would also—yourself included today—say that there are issues in regard to abundance. I don't think anybody is disputing any of that.
I do want to talk a little bit about what some of the potential options are going forward, rather than just looking at one or two options. I think there are couple of other opportunities that are available. One of them would be the potential use of hatcheries, not as a permanent solution, but as an interim solution to increase abundance and to restore stocks. Of course, there's going to be ongoing efforts for cleaning up our streams and making them more productive, but there's also the use of selective gear to ensure that wild salmon are given every opportunity.
Would any of you want to talk about what changes we can make, whether it's the harvest taken by first nations along the fresh water or along the coast, or whether it would be sport fishers or others? What sacrifices or ideas can we make in order to ensure that wild salmon are allowed to return to spawn? We can use different vehicles.
What we're doing right now is basically watching salmon disappear. We have to do something different. What things could we do differently, other than just closing or moving the fish farms? I don't think that, in and of itself, is going to solve the problem. What other things can we do?
Who would like to take a shot at that?