Yes, broadly, the needs of any resource management, whether it's fish, wildlife or habitat, are funding, science and social support, which is essentially government.
The funding piece is one of the critical pieces in Canada. When we look south of the border, they have dedicated funding mechanisms. They have funding mechanisms where dollars flow directly from the purchase of hunting and fishing gear and where dollars from resource extraction fund directly into compensation.
One other example is in the Columbia basin. Here in British Columbia is 30% of it, and then 70% is in the United States. Due to hydroelectric development, we have a compensation program that spends $5.5 million to $6 million a year trying to offset or compensate for the losses to fish and wildlife, including salmon. When we look south of the border, their funding is north of $500 million a year in 70% of the basin. I will add that Canada and British Columbia are net beneficiaries of the Columbia River Treaty.
The bottom line here in Canada is that we need dedicated, long-term funding to take care of our salmon. We currently do not have that. Salmon, quite frankly, do not operate on four-year time scales like our electoral process. When times get tough, the first thing that's cut is the environment. When times are good, the last thing that gets funding is the environment. Canada really needs to move to a sustainable, long-term funding model that is dedicated to taking care of our fish, wildlife and habitat. Unless we do that, I think things are going to continue to slide.
You did mention fish farms. That's also been a commitment of the Government of Canada: to transition out. We are definitely concerned that we're seeing signs that the transition may not happen or may get dragged out. I think the science is in. We need to do everything we can for our wild salmon. Transitioning to close containment or getting fish farms out of the water is certainly one of those pieces.