There are a few ways for me to answer that question.
One is that I've reviewed internal science advice within DFO, and I have no confidence in the quality of it. I know it's not in line with the international science research on those topics. I don't have time to go into detail on that right now.
The second aspect is that, even when I was involved in work with DFO scientists themselves, I had no confidence that results would be communicated up the chain towards the minister. For that reason, we sought external ways to provide that information.
The short answer is that I have low confidence. I think having an external body might help some of those issues, because you'd cut out some of the ladders of hierarchy where that information might get blocked.