It's over now, might be able to re-play it. The main points I took from it is DFO is an absolute mess.
Cohen says DFO has a habitat policy from 1986 that has not been fully implemented. He said that habitat policy looks good and changes to the 1986 policy do not need to be made the policy just needs to be fully implemented. He also said DFO has a wild salmon policy they came up with in 2004... or maybe it was 2006 but anyways since then next to nothing has been done with it. Cohen recommends somebody be put in charge of implementing this policy in full and to get it done ASAP. He says if they continue on the current pace he has little faith anything will change in the forseeable future.
Cohen also said DFO is in a conflict of interest because it has a mandate to protect wild salmon and to promote fish farms. He suggested all promotion of fish farms should be taken away from DFO and given to some other organization due to the fact it is likely the promotion of fish farms has an adverse effect on wild salmon.
He has suggested a lot of research on multiple areas including fish farms, disease, fish habitat etc. He basically said enough isn't known to say for sure the cause of the decline but the government of Canada should fund some specific studies to find out, and then only allow fish farms to continue to operate if the studies prove they have a minimal chance of effecting wild salmon stocks.
He also said Harpers new habitat policies are garbage and that in order to sustain healthy wild stocks you need healthy habitat and the two must be linked and protected together. He said his report has 75 recommendations.
It wasn't all bad for DFO Cohen commended them on some of the work they do and some of his recommendations involve increases to DFO funding, funding set aside for specific research projects he has recoommended, funding set aside to implement both the wild salmon policy from 2006 and the habitat policy from 1986. He said more needs to be done on enforcement of all fisheries by people on the ground, on the water and in the air.
