Fisheries committee  I would agree with that.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I would agree with that. In terms of the scenario of the young person coming in looking for 100% financing and encountering some difficulty, the bank lends using a variety of criteria. As Peter mentioned, experience in the industry, some equity, and some support in terms of perhaps sponsor support from a guarantor would all be factors taken into account.

Fisheries committee  The objective of the most recent meeting was to discuss access to financing for the industry. As a result of the discussions that were held at that meeting, one of the issues was how to quantify quota. So it came out as a by-product of the discussion and a request from the banks for assistance in terms of how we might be able to value the quota or the licences.

Fisheries committee  I would agree with what has been said. I would point out that the risk assessment will also depend greatly on the species that is being processed. A scallop processing operation these days would be viewed to have certainly less risk than lobster because of the stability of the species and the market demand.

Fisheries committee  The minister was not in attendance at the meeting, and the meeting was held at the request of DFO.

Fisheries committee  It's with DFO right now.

Fisheries committee  No, actually, there had been a meeting prior to that in December 2008 also, with representatives of both the federal and provincial governments, specifically to discuss the financial health of the lobster industry in Atlantic Canada.

Fisheries committee  Scott, are you speaking of the fishermen having difficulty accessing capital or the processors?

Fisheries committee  Yes, and I think, again, what we're being told and what we're seeing is that a lot of the processing clients are holding excess inventory from last year at higher prices. So there may not have been as much demand for product, as it was being caught this year as well.

Fisheries committee  If I might respond to that as well, part of the difficulty in extending a longer amortization is trying to get comfortable with the value of the licence or the quota. We've had meetings with DFO just as recently as a month ago where we said to them that the banks would be quite happy to lend more, but what we need DFO to help us with is to find the mechanism to value those licences.

Fisheries committee  The response from DFO was that they were looking at gathering some information and hopefully would get back to the banks with some idea as to what the viability is long term, because they have all kinds of data, so they might be able to help us use that to determine what the value for a licence in a particular zone is.

Fisheries committee  That would be true with Scotiabank as well. There has been no change in policy.

Fisheries committee  And that would be true with Scotiabank as well. What we have seen is a bit of a drop in demand for financing in the last little while, which was no doubt in response to the fact that prices are down and people are concerned about the viability of the industry. The credit opportunities we've been presented with, we have approved.