I can maybe start on this.
I think what you're perceiving is correct. In the scientific community, there is very definitely a split. Recent COSEWIC decisions about west coast salmon really criticized industrial-scale hatcheries. These are the large mega hatcheries, not the community-based hatcheries. The concern they have is that these large-scale hatcheries will produce large numbers of juveniles that will compete with the wild salmon that we're trying to restore, and that may not be positive.
The other side of the coin is that you can't just write off hatcheries. We talked with Josh that you can get down to very few fish in some streams on the west coast. Letting that go is irresponsible, because all you're doing is what we would call a “genetic bottleneck”. You are going to inbreed that population. What you would do is to use a conservation-type hatchery—maybe just for a short period of time—to restore some spawners in there to get the population production up.
Hatcheries are becoming quite a polarized source of discussion. I think it really depends on the problem you have and the tools you have available on how to address it.
Your perception is correct. There is a difference out here, and it really depends on what your objective is on what to do.