As I mentioned in my opening statement, DFO in general knows how to do stock assessment, and has demonstrated that capacity in the past. What has happened over the past 20 years is that much stock assessment has been reduced in many places. This includes Pacific salmon on the west coast. Not only do we lose that basic information we need to make the right decisions about fishing, but we also break the cycle and the long-term information database we have that really helps our long-term understanding.
As I suggested, for Pacific salmon at least, this government has recently announced the Pacific salmon strategy initiative, which provides the opportunity to restore some of that stock assessment—at least for the highly valued Pacific salmon. But, ultimately, stock assessment capacity remains a challenge in a number of fisheries and, as Dr. Rangeley has pointed out, we still lack it in far too many of our species. As much as we hope to take an ecosystem approach, we need to understand not just our target species, but also other species in the ecosystem and how they're being affected by our actions as well.