Yes, I believe so.
On the issue of the explanation, because there was a rule, a threshold brought in, in 1997, that subsequently got changed in 2003 without any transparency to that change, and then got changed again in 2007 without any transparency to that change.... In what areas of governance do we say that a rule made in 1997 is never subject to change?
I just explained about the original rule, the initial rule in 1978 that applied to the offshore sector: they had to have at least 50% of the catch processed in plants to create employment. That was one of the reasons why they got the allocation—to create jobs—and that got changed. So rules can change, and LIFO can change.
In fact, there was a case very similar to the wording of Mifflin's press release in 1978 about thresholds. In the crab fishery on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, in an area called 3K, there was a threshold there. The original licence-holders in that group had a line in the management plan for several years, which said that if the quota fell below a certain level, the level at which these other entrants came in, these later entrants, all the newer entrants would be removed and only the original fishing fleet would remain in that fishery. That's what the plan said, but several years later, about 10 years later, the quota fell below that threshold and the later entrants remained in the fishery.
Something similar happened in the gulf. The initial fleet appealed that to the Supreme Court in Newfoundland and lost the appeal. The grounds on which they lost the appeal were that the previous minister, 10 years previously, could not tie the hands of the current minister and that in fact the current minister had every right to change the policy—and did so—and the current minister or next year’s minister has every right to change LIFO and to reflect fairness in the sharing of the impact of the decline.