I'm not a scholar of how policy is made legally, but what I can provide.... We can talk about other examples within Canada, about why policy is so important and about some of the really big issues, like the example of how vaccines are reviewed for public safety. It's all about trust, and to get that trust, there's a body with a really strict conflict of interest policy so people can trust the information they're receiving. I think something analogous needs to happen for fisheries, because right now trust isn't there.
One key feature of our independent body that we recommend is a legislative basis that makes sure science advice from an independent body is enshrined in law. That's one input to the decision-making. Exactly how that would look, I'm not sure, but looking at the Fisheries Act, I see it states that science is one of the considerations when it comes to decision-making, so maybe, similar to some of the other issues you've heard today, it's more about an implementation gap and making sure that the science is of a good enough quality and is provided, rather than not being in the law itself.