Sure, Mr. Johns. Thank you for the question.
I'll do my best to be brief. The idea of the secretariat is positive and enticing, but it will depend on the details.
I think it will help within DFO if they can reorganize around the idea of supporting salmon recovery and sustainability. Right now, the department is still organized around the old days, which means organized around going fishing for abundances of wild salmon, and circumstances have changed. There needs to be a change whereby the department's management objective and structure shift. I think the secretariat can support that.
It should also include collaboration and co-operation with B.C. Essentially DFO manages salmon and habitat and B.C. manages land and water. You can't manage those things independently. They're the same thing, and the jurisdictions that have that authority would ideally co-operate.
As I said in my opening statement, first nations and indigenous rights are critical. They are closest to the land. They're the ones in the homes where these salmon go back. Those things need to be integrated. Some ability to have independent participation that is able to report directly to senior levels and to elected officials would be ideal, because there can be tensions within any organization or structure, and the ability for an entity to speak freely based solely on the best interest of wild salmon sustainability would be ideal.