Fisheries committee  Thank you. I have a brief presentation on our response to last year's decisions in the Federal Court. I'd like to take you through it. It gives the context and an indication of what our response is. DFO has a long-standing policy of shared stewardship with the industry. We beli

Fisheries committee  Yes. We will provide it.

Fisheries committee  Certainly, I'd be happy to explain. The slide talks about allocations of fish. That means that this year there's no 1,000 tonnes of crab set aside to finance a research project. I believe Mr. Haché was referring to the money that arose previously, which is in a suspense account,

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. We continue to want to enter into collaborative arrangements with the fishing industry. There's nothing in the court decision that forbids this. We're not threatening anyone that there won't be a fishery if they don't give us money for a collaborative arran

Fisheries committee  The $24 million is the industry contribution last year for all these projects. Some of them don't need to continue. Some of them can be brought in line with Larocque without spending money--just by doing them differently. Also, many of those projects involved more fishing than wa

Fisheries committee  We're meeting primarily with the BC Seafood Alliance, which brings together a big chunk of the B.C. industry. I understand there will be some additional representatives from fishermen's groups who are not in the alliance but will also be at that meeting. It's a one-day meeting an

Fisheries committee  Most of these arrangements involve an association of fishers. Basically, it's between us and them. We assume that the association represents its membership. In cases where there is no association, it's more complicated. I can't give you a definitive answer whether the approach is

Fisheries committee  At this point, Mr. Chairman, we are determining how many people are affected, and how badly, so that we'll be in a position to go forward, if a decision is made to do so.

Fisheries committee  Mr. Chairman, I don't think I should go too far into detail. EI is a factor. Some fishermen are still on EI; some are not. That detail is part of the file.

Fisheries committee  I will answer the first question. If Bill C-45 survives in its current form, there will be mechanisms to make fishery management agreements involving fish allocations legal. It is up to Parliament. The Bill, as proposed, would allow for such agreements in the future. I will now

Fisheries committee  Mr. Chairman, that's a very complicated question, and I don't know if I can really give a comprehensive answer. With respect to the specific points raised by the witnesses last Thursday, we'll be happy to reply in writing with our perspective on what they said. With respect to

Fisheries committee  The licence is an access fee and it is intended to respond, to some extent, yes, to the value of access to that resource.

Fisheries committee  I'll be brief.

Fisheries committee  Basically, the Federal Court decisions last year said that Parliament has not given you the authority to allocate fish to fund collaborative arrangements. The section in Bill C-45 that you're referring to, if it becomes law, would give us the parliamentary authorization to do so.

Fisheries committee  Mr. Chairman, that one is quite subtle. As I understand it, the court decision was that the minister did not own the fish and he did not have the authority to allocate fish for the purpose of funding or generating financing for any of the department's programs. It was not that h