Thank you, Chair.
Welcome, Minister.
I'm happy that you're here today. There are lots of questions we'd like to ask you.
The first one wasn't going to be on my list today, but now I have to ask it. My colleague MP Hardie was asking about the transition from open-net fish farms, and a couple of things stuck out to me.
The first thing is I felt like you were saying there is a difference between food security and the protection of wild salmon and that they were two separate things that needed to be balanced. That's what I was hearing, but I want to point out how important it is for us to recognize that protecting wild salmon is protecting food security. The two aren't polar opposites that need to be balanced. In fact, you can look at both of them, and the transition away from open-net fish farms is part of protecting wild Pacific salmon and food security.
I appreciate the questions that were asked, but I do want to highlight one of the questions about the industry not being consulted enough. We know for a fact that the industry, between July 2022 and September 2023, was consulted 52 times by the previous minister, and I believe some of that might have included you. I can't remember the exact timeline.
Just to clarify the question that was asked about the industry not being consulted enough, we know that Mowi, Grieg and Cermaq have been consulted to a much larger degree than any other stakeholders. I'm wondering if you would be able to comment on the amount of consultation that has happened with industry through the process of developing a transition plan, which, in my opinion, is not happening in a timely enough manner.