It is something that worries us.
There are so many caveats I would have to append to any comment on this at this point. I don't have a detailed understanding of what's being proposed. I had one opportunity to read through a document that was provided to me on my way here on my BlackBerry last night. I caught half of a conference call this afternoon, which gave me a little bit of insight into things.
I'll be frank. I don't like some of what I'm seeing. That may or may not be an informed opinion. I don't know.
There's no question, in my mind, that the Fisheries Act is something that could use some improving. When I see some of the changes that are being proposed around habitat, when the habitat regulations have been important as they have been, I get nervous.
The sorts of questions you're putting, in terms of what's an important fish and what isn't, are certainly questions we.... One of the things we do on an ongoing basis is try to find markets for fish we catch as incidental capture that currently aren't worth anything. As it stands right now, those fish I think would be considered of no value. It's not for lack of interest in trying to find value for them, and from time to time we find value.
Perch used to go for pennies a pound in Lake Erie, when the fishery in the 1960s was predominantly for blue pike, which are now extinct. The perch were a really low-value species. Eel was the same. They used to catch them and sell them for chicken feed, as an incidental capture, in Lake Ontario. When they finally were wiped out by the seaway and the power generation on the St. Lawrence, they were worth $4 a pound in Japan.