Fisheries committee  In the science field, I'd have to get back to you with specific data.

Fisheries committee  I think I qualified the latter by saying that in the last round of cuts—that's the cuts as a result of budget 2013—there were no front-line staff cut who were involved in delivery of services to Canadians directly. It was based on a combination of existing organizations, to remove duplication, to look at increasing spans of control, to deal with the management overhead, etc.

Fisheries committee  Okay.

Fisheries committee  We're keeping our focus on the front line at this point. I'm not saying that this is the way it's going to be all the time. We live by appropriations. If they go down again, we'll have to deal with that. At this point we're controlling our vacancies. Generally speaking, we're trying to avoid anything that would impact on service delivery, so we are hiring technicians, ships' crews, and fisheries officers, etc.

Fisheries committee  No, we're still hiring.

Fisheries committee  No, I'm saying that the front line is based on research. Research is part of my understanding of the front line.

Fisheries committee  It's the people on ships, fisheries officers, ships' crews, resource managers, etc. Those are the guys we're trying to protect as we move forward.

Fisheries committee  It's beyond the mandate to talk about decisions regarding the Kyoto protocol, but not beyond our issue. We are responding to it by factoring temperature into our harvest levels, by factoring in management decisions, etc. We're looking at that very much when we do our decisions on our responsibilities to manage the fisheries.

Fisheries committee  I can't speak to the Kyoto protocol because that's a much broader context, beyond DFO's competency. I can say that we have changed the way we have been looking at how we manage fisheries. In particular, we're taking a much more risk-averse approach. We're trying to reduce the stress we put on stocks through fishing mortality.

Fisheries committee  No, we're going to proceed with the savings as planned.

Fisheries committee  Our objective there, and what we are going to do, is to make sure there is bilingual service provided for people wishing to access our libraries, no matter where they're from. Most of—

Fisheries committee  That's correct. It's part of a collective agreement through the workforce adjustment. These are not things that can be altered by us. It's part of a collective agreement, and therefore we have to adhere to that process. There is four months, but you're asking a question about an end date, and I have to be absolutely sure we know what the start date was, because if the start date was not a week or so ago, then it could be true that it could be January 8.

Fisheries committee  Clearly, when we were going through the process it was a difficult time. People who had worked with colleagues over a period of many years either were getting letters, or their colleagues were getting letters. It was a difficult time. We have been managing our vacancy patterns for a number of years in order to try to have a soft landing for people, and I think we've had a pretty good track record in looking after our folks.

Fisheries committee  I think what are called workforce adjustment letters were provided.

Fisheries committee  I can start with Cohen and then turn it over to the commissioner on the coast guard. On Cohen, I think it is pretty clear that we've taken to heart the recommendations. We are continuing with the Qualark Creek monitoring. We're doing the work that it was suggested be maintained.