That's something we thought about when we put together our paper. It uses salmon aquaculture in B.C. as a case study, but we see the same issues across the board. I think it makes the work of the decision-makers at DFO very difficult if they can't necessarily trust the information they are receiving. While on paper sometimes things look okay in terms of how DFO gets their science advice, it doesn't always work out to be the case. This isn't about a few isolated cases. There's a kind of structural issue regarding how science is handled, which is why we came to the recommendation of a body independent from political and bureaucratic influence.
I used the example of COSEWIC because I think overall it has the respect and trust of the public given the science and work done there. I've spoken to some of the chairs of that body. Because of their conflict of interest policy, they know they're just there to review the science. There are stops and processes involved to make sure that kind of bureaucracy or political influence doesn't get involved in the process.