First off, we need to acknowledge that there is a clear lack of any measure of trust between the first nations of British Columbia and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I'm not trying to be untoward or combative. I'm just stating what I've seen and heard many times over. As a result of that, there is a very high level of mistrust of science.
In terms of the DFO's monitoring of disease and sea lice on the fish farms, you have to understand that it's a monitoring program. They come by and they just check on the audit. They audit the fish farm company's work.
I'm mindful of a recent science paper that spoke about how numbers were higher when the DFO was around and lower when it wasn't. This is the kind of information that causes great consternation for first nations. We want independent monitoring and oversight, by the standards that we insist upon.
The DFO relies upon counting adult and sub-adult sea lice, but we know that the ones in a smaller life cycle will grow into adults, so we consider counting those, which the department doesn't do, as well as science and the methodology.