I believe we have a very strong body of science that can guide us well. Much of it is in play now, but there's more to do.
PSF is currently undertaking a hatchery effectiveness study, as funded by the B.C. salmon restoration and innovation fund. We will hopefully have some findings on this matter within the coming year.
In general, Mr. Hardie, I would say that there is a perception, I think broadly, among the general public that hatcheries are always good; that if you have a salmon problem, a hatchery is a really good way to fix that problem. The reality is that hatcheries essentially protect and make life for salmon better in one small aspect of their life history: when they're in the gravel and up to the point that they're baby salmon and they leave. When you put them out there, however, one big problem we have in British Columbia is that these salmon come back as mixed stocks.
Just as an example, if you have two streams that both make 10 fish and then you put 100 extra fish in one stream and no extra fish in the other and you then go fishing, you're going to catch a lot of your hatchery fish, but you're also going to catch some of those wild fish, and you could inadvertently be reducing the well-being of those wild fish, because they swim alongside the hatchery fish and it's difficult to affect that.