I am very happy to hear that the department puts the matter of the prevention and control of invasive species in the Great Lakes at the highest priority. Do I understand that to be the case? You're nodding yes.
I'm also happy, and I guess it's consistent with what you said earlier in your presentation, that that's why the department wants to assume a leadership role with respect to the prevention and control of invasive species.
Now, what we're talking about is invasive species in the Great Lakes. You mentioned earlier that $6.1 million had been allocated for the prevention and control of the sea lamprey in the Great Lakes. You also mentioned that this amount was the lion's share of what the department has allocated towards the prevention and control of invasive species, generally. So I'm assuming that the whole budget is just slightly more than $6.1 million and the $6.1 million is what is dedicated to the prevention and control of sea lamprey.
You mention that there's experimentation being done--I think you said “pheromones”--with respect to the control of sea lamprey and that perhaps by 2010 that might have gone beyond the experimentation stage and that we can expect perhaps to introduce that kind of control.
My question, in view of that premise, is this. I've been a member of this committee for five out of the seven years that I've been a member of Parliament, and the $6.1 million has not been a stable amount, a static amount, of funding towards the program
How do we justify, in view of the figures that the chair related to the committee, that it's possible that the real cost of controlling aquatic invasive species in the Great Lakes could be somewhere between $13 billion and $14 billion and that we're allocating approximately something over $6.1 million for the control of all invasive species at the moment?
How do you rationalize this with your statement that it's such a high priority and such a minuscule amount of the department's budget allocated to that high priority?