Fisheries committee  Just to add to what Jay was saying there, under the aquaculture innovation market access program, production elements are still considered an eligible area of inquiry.

Fisheries committee  I'll pass that over to James Smith, who will have a comment, I believe.

Fisheries committee  At the price today--

Fisheries committee  Certainly, based on the analysis the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has conducted, it's not economically feasible given the selling price of salmon today.

Fisheries committee  It's not so much a make-work project; it is very much a pilot-scale facility to test the pre-commercial scale of Atlatic salmon production.

Fisheries committee  Yes, and it would certainly be the largest type of project that we have funded along those lines. There are a number of other contributing partners as well; it's not just DFO.

Fisheries committee  I think it's actually a duty of both the sectors. It's a duty of the government to help innovation. Certainly from DFO's perspective with the aquaculture innovation program, the focus of that has really been to encourage pre-commercial-scale development of different technologies.

Fisheries committee  No. That's one of the premises behind closed containment, that it can shorten the grow-out cycle of the fish.

Fisheries committee  That is one of the goals of this project with the Namgis First Nation. In theory, it should, but it's never been demonstrated in real, commercial-scale production. That's the whole goal of this project.

Fisheries committee  The density is higher. The density is approximately--

Fisheries committee  At the projected densities they're looking at, it shouldn't affect the growth. We're looking at approximately three times the density of open-net pens. With any growth trials we've seen for fish at 15 kilograms per cubic metre versus 50 kilograms per cubic metre, the growth is approximately the same.

Fisheries committee  Within that cubic metre of water, yes, we can. The reason they're striving for increased density is to be able to take advantage of the increased cost of the capital assets. As you know from previous testimony at this committee, the costs for a closed-containment system versus a net-pen system are significantly different.

Fisheries committee  --about seven and a half times.

Fisheries committee  It's certainly one of the reasons. Canada, in my opinion, is a world leader in the use of closed-containment technology, certainly from the perspective of recirculating systems for juvenile production. That's the hatch reproduction. Now we're being asked to look at how this technology would be applied for the entire grow-out cycle, and that is the big question.

Fisheries committee  I don't have a specific update as to exactly where they are, but I believe the vast majority of the funding is being used to purchase capital equipment--tanks, water filtration systems, and that type of equipment.