Fisheries committee  We received temporary funding for five years. I am sure that in four years' time, my team will do what is needed to obtain the funds required to continue our work.

Fisheries committee  Yes, you are right, but we can also start by creating a program, improving it over the first five years and then forwarding our observations and recommendations to the government for subsequent years.

Fisheries committee  The reality is that we're expending resources for an issue that, to this point, exists south of the border.

Fisheries committee  Clearly that goes a long way. The fact that we're leveraging off what the Americans are doing goes a long way as well. To your point about the economic analysis and the impacts of this, we'll have a Canadian analysis, as I said, in the spring. We can look at what has happened i

Fisheries committee  The folks doing that are members of our regional departmental team. That study stands at the point that the findings have been brought together, and it is now being peer-reviewed. That will happen over the next month or two. From there, the information will be shared broadly, as

Fisheries committee  I'm happy you came back with that question. I didn't want to leave on the record the thought that we had huge amounts of money. Clearly, when we were developing the annex and our negotiating position, we were also looking at what we were doing with Asian carp and other aquatic

Fisheries committee  Again, I don't have the whole suite of numbers. The program we use for sea lamprey is probably the big ticket. It's an established issue we're dealing with, but again is an issue we're dealing with in partnership with the Americans. The Americans contribute money, as do we, throu

Fisheries committee  In Ontario the province has the delegation; they've assumed the role of fisheries resource management. As a result of that they're using the federal Fisheries Act as their vehicle for managing the commercial fisheries on the Great Lakes. If through the amendments to the Fisheries

Fisheries committee  When we look at the number of shipments that have been coming in that we've caught, and the prosecutions, I think I've said it here before that a $50,000 fine on fish that is $4 or $5 a pound in the Toronto fish markets is seen by some to be the cost of doing business. If we can

Fisheries committee  I think that's where the coordination and integration is coming home to play. Clearly, in the Great Lakes, the fisheries are managed by the province, so it's the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources that has the boots on the ground, so to speak, to address that. What we've been

Fisheries committee  That's right.

Fisheries committee  Let me answer that question in two ways. I've been around government for more of my life than I was out of it; I guess that's the way to put it. I've seen programs come and go. I've seen budget increases and I've seen budget reductions. Every time I looked at our budget, I notice

Fisheries committee  Clearly, all of the research and all of the work we're doing, even the work we're doing on Asian carp, and the $17.5 million is focused purely on Asian carp, we could use that, and we are using that, for all other aquatic invasive species. The approach we're using, the scientific

Fisheries committee  The forum is probably the first big event in which we have an opportunity to provide that sort of broad-based outreach to Canadians in a very public way. We're going to have the benefit of having the American experts along with our Canadian experts there.

Fisheries committee  Incredibly. I've been involved in a lot of work internally and externally with our colleagues. I must say this is probably some of the most rewarding work I've been involved with in my public service career, because everybody knows the impacts of this if we don't succeed.