Fisheries committee  That's right.

Fisheries committee  Right now, for the vessels under six metres, we are intending to use what we call capacity plates, such as are now used for the calculations of, for example, pleasure craft, recreational boats. As part of that, it could be simply that the stability is established by the fact that

Fisheries committee  May I make a comment about this? I know the connection between stability and length is that the fishing vessel safety regulations do not tie in with the cut-offs, the lengths that are used by DFO. They have been established simply for regulatory convenience and they do not tie in

Fisheries committee  No, I'm not saying that, sir.

Fisheries committee  Absolutely. We have been discussing the new requirements. The consultation has been, even up to now, quite extensive, including the fishermen from.... You're from P.E.I., sir.

Fisheries committee  They insisted that I come down and see their boats first-hand, and I have. We're very aware of the type of boat used in P.E.I. for lobster and the kinds of safety requirements. We're taking that into consideration in the proposal. It does depend on the size of the vessel.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  And that is very well understood. Those vessels that are specifically designed for the lobster inshore fishermen are also used for other purposes and for other fisheries, and they go out for caplin and herring, and those vessels will have a different requirement.

Fisheries committee  What you are saying is true. As a matter of fact, no change had been made to the rules for more than 25 years. Moreover, across Canada, the fishing industry went through big changes. This is one of the big problems we are facing today. The situation may be different if amendment

Fisheries committee  Several factors can explain the delays in the changes to the rules, but there was a big change earlier, at the time we made a reform. It is called safety rules reform. This is one of the reasons of these delays. Other priorities arose from time to time, and it is then that we b

Fisheries committee  I'll try to very quickly touch on two points, the statistics and the issue of similar vessels. On the statistics, in fact, if you simply look at absolute numbers, the fatalities on fishing vessels have been reduced over the past 20 years. But of course, when you look at the numb

Fisheries committee  We have in fact been engaged in a very extensive and comprehensive review of a number of regulations, in particular the fishing vessel regulations that are part of the Canada Shipping Act regulatory reform process. Not only have we engaged in the regular process, which is through

Fisheries committee  It's a never-ending topic, I'm afraid. We have done quite a lot of work at the National Research Council facilities in St. John's, Newfoundland, at the oceans technology institute, but the particular study you mentioned that the professor was working on was not sanctioned by Tran

Fisheries committee  If I could put it this way, the only concern is with a vessel that has, as Mr. Nash said, high windage, that has been perhaps made higher than a traditional type of vessel or that has been made wider. In fact, being wider gives it more stability, but then because the vessel becom

Fisheries committee  I'm nodding yes, because we certainly can provide them, and they will not be put in place before the information is provided.