Thank you very much for that question, Ms. Barron. It's very current.
The Cowichan River could be used as an example and a template for salmon recovery in British Columbia, in that it's an area in which several levels of government—municipal, provincial and federal—along with first nations brought the community together in response to a stock that had literally collapsed. In that time period, through a variety of different initiatives—tweaking the hatchery system, dealing with habitat and, most importantly, dealing with water flows, which, I would remind this committee, are among the most significant habitat components that salmon need—we were able to take a stock that in 2009 was at around 500 animals and bring it up to three times the escapement goal, over 18,000 for the last four years.
It is a great example. Thank you for asking the question. I would suggest that it could be considered a template for the PSSI as a means to effectively bring communities and governments together to recover a threatened salmon population.