Fisheries committee  Not in my experience.

Fisheries committee  Certainly the results of that study were made available within the department. Every piece of science that is done in my group is reported up through the chain if it could potentially impact policies or regulations. The department certainly knew, even back in 2012, of those findings.

Fisheries committee  I would echo the comments of Dr. Leblanc that our role as scientists is to provide scientific information, not to make the policy. We have very little control...or a limited amount of input on what science moves forward to the minister, or even to upper managers in Ottawa, and how they utilize that science.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for the question. Uncertainty is a means to reflect incomplete scientific information, or studies and interpretations that may contradict one another. Where there's uncertainty, there's an expectation that policies will be more precautionary, especially in cases where there's a resource in crisis.

Fisheries committee  I do. A lot of my research focuses on work in wild organisms in their natural environment. However, we do bring certain questions into the lab, largely related to the impact of stress on fish and the impact of climate change. We can show, within a laboratory setting, what amount of a given stressor may impose stress and may result in mortality in a lab, and we can go out and measure those kinds of effects in fish in the field.

Fisheries committee  Funding in the department is largely based on competitive proposals. There is the new Pacific salmon strategy initiative. I have not yet received any funding from that strategy, but I anticipate that hopefully I will. I fund my program principally through money outside of the department, because I have better success in generating funds to do my research with outside granting agencies than I do inside the department.

Fisheries committee  I can only guess that the science that was provided to the minister would be the seven CSAS documents, reports that were prepared that all declared no more than a minimal risk with a high degree of uncertainty. Based on those assessments, there would likely be no reason to suggest that there was a scientific basis.

Fisheries committee  I'm not privy to the information that the minister would have been provided with, so I really can't speak to the basis of how she made her decision. Certainly, the strategic salmon health initiative, which I collaborated on with Dr. Brian Riddell of the Pacific Salmon Foundation, has identified specific evidence that would suggest that at least two pathogens, piscine orthoreovirus and tenacibaculum maritimum, may pose more than a minimal risk, but both of those agents were part of the CSAS process that did declare that there was a consensus decision with very high uncertainty of no more than a minimal risk.

Fisheries committee  Yes, there is a vast difference in how my research has been taken by the department compared with how it's been taken internationally. I'm repeatedly asked to collaborate on international studies that employ the kinds of technological approaches that I have employed and developed as a scientist in Canada while working for Fisheries and Oceans, and it's fairly rare that I've been asked to employ those technologies within my department.

Fisheries committee  The study took place in 2012, and a report was prepared in that same year. The delay was due to a disagreement between me and the industry vets on the interpretation of the science. That delay has continued for 10 years, because apparently there needs to be an agreement on the interpretation of the science before the report can be put in, or before a manuscript can be prepared.

Fisheries committee  The importance of that study was that it was the first study to document the presence of PRV in salmon in the Pacific northwest. It definitely could have informed a lot of the work moving forward. However, subsequent to that, there were other studies by other groups on that particular virus.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I think my comments on this have been made public previously. I have had concerns over the inclusion, or control, of these kinds of processes by industry. However, there is now a new conflict of interest document that goes with the CSAS process, and I am hoping that this may resolve some of those issues into the future.