Fisheries committee  To my mind, there will always be a concern about open-net pens in the environment. I think it's fair to say that until that concern is put to bed by seeing whether an effective and viable closed containment system can work, there will be a limitation on the amount of capacity in open-net farms on the west coast of B.C.

Fisheries committee  It's nice to see you again. The short answer is yes. The reorganization was announced only on Monday, so it's early days to know how effective it is. The principal concern of the forum in terms of watersheds was that the province was issuing independently across a number of different agencies--forests, tourism, lands, environment, and mining--different permissions to access and do business with watersheds.

Fisheries committee  Of the ones that were not implemented, as far as we know, the forum recommended that a body independent of the natural resources agency and independent of DFO would be undertaken to have an oversight over this whole ecosystem approach, which marries marine planning with watershed planning.

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe there were two reasons for the genesis of the salmon forum. One was to bring independent science to try to resolve some of the conflicts between science that had affected the status of the industry in the years before the forum was set up. The second was to look at provincial legislation in watersheds to improve wild salmon.