Fisheries committee  Sure, I can do that. Andy, do you want me to do the chemical resistance?

Fisheries committee  I was at a session yesterday at Sea Lice 2010, called “Resistance”. It had titles such as “Reduced sensitivity to emamectin benzoate in a farm population of sea lice”, “Increased tolerance towards emamectin benzoate versus fitness in lab-reared sea louse”, etc. The plenary talk was given by Professor Tor Horsberg, from the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science in Norway.

Fisheries committee  It's an international workshop that happens every year. It just happened to be in British Columbia this year, but, again, we're hearing all the learning from Europe in particular, which has a really hard time seemingly to penetrate on this coast. We seem to be pioneers here. We have to reinvent the wheel all the time too.

Fisheries committee  Not particularly on that. I've read Dr. Wright's study. I was at the workshop on recirculating aquaculture. I believe the economics are there. We also have to keep in mind that it's been popular around the world in resource management to offload fees, if you will, onto ecosystem services, which is exactly why open-net cage salmon farming is cheaper.

Fisheries committee  We've been working with Dr. Crawford Revie, who's an expert on farm-salmon dynamics. He's been coordinating our monitoring programs for the coordinate area management that we've been doing in the Broughton, and they are starting to see some evidence in New Brunswick, where salmon has been farmed longer.

Fisheries committee  It's only a matter of rate until we catch up to the rest of the world. We are using it now. One of the things that is reducing infection pressures in the Broughton is the earlier application of SLICE, emamectin benzoate, which is a neuro-disruptor. There is absolutely no doubt that we'll catch up to the rest of the world.

Fisheries committee  Yes, as part of our agreement with Marine Harvest, the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform put some researchers on two of their farms in the Broughton Archipelago in the spring of 2006. We stood beside the louse counters and monitored their counts. We examined the efficacy of SLICE on the number of lice on the adult salmon in the farms.

Fisheries committee  Again, we're just putting together a paper. We've been examining sockeye and sea lice on this coast, along with Mike Price and some other colleagues. We presented the preliminary results at Sea Lice 2010 here in Victoria just two days ago. Sockeye come out of the Fraser. They go north through the Strait of Georgia and encounter the large concentration of salmon farms around the Campbell River, Discovery Islands areas.

Fisheries committee  Thank you very much for the time. I apologize that I don't have a lot of prepared notes. I've been at a sea lice workshop here in Victoria, at which there was a lot of talk about resistance of sea lice to chemical treatments. I don't really have a lot of notes prepared, but I do have a couple comments.