Fisheries committee  I can only speak to my own situation prior to my retirement. At the time we completed something that was called the integrated fisheries management plan that included conservation, protection and enforcement as part of the model. It was run primarily by the areas. Just to give you some of my own experience, I had disagreements in the past from some of my masters at regional headquarters who had a different idea of how enforcement should have been conducted.

Fisheries committee  That's my understanding. I wouldn't call it a resignation. I would call it an opting for early retirement, because he was frustrated with the decisions that were being made for him to stand down his unit in St. Marys Bay.

Fisheries committee  I think it's long overdue that the Department of Fisheries has direct-line reporting similar to the RCMP. I don't believe that you should be hiring directors general—supervising conservation, protection and enforcement in Ottawa—or regional directors in Halifax who have never been trained as fisheries officers, who have never done fisheries officer duties, who are bureaucrats who don't know the people they're directing and how they're trained, or how they should function in potentially very dangerous situations.

Fisheries committee  I think there are two particular issues with the problem. First of all, I wouldn't even try to comment on present-day realities, but I've heard from some of my colleagues who are still with the department. That's why I recommended that the standing committee should listen to them, in the field, today, and not look for advice from a has-been who was there 20 years ago, talking about what problems I had.

Fisheries committee  I'm having trouble with your translation because I can hear your French at the same time that I'm hearing the translation and they're talking over each other.

Fisheries committee  I can understand you fine in English.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I understand your question very well. The difficulty I have is that I haven't been involved directly with DFO in enforcement for five or six years now, so I'm not sure of the present situation. I was involved in a process at the time called C and P renewal, which introduced another level of supervision into the fishery officer training and command.

Fisheries committee  From my understanding, it has resulted in two things. One is that over the last few years, the number of food fish traps that are authorized had been increasing to what I'm hearing is a stage when the quantity of traps being issued are reaching commercial quantities. When you're catching commercial quantities, that increases the incentive to sell commercial quantities illegally.

Fisheries committee  I'm not sure I understood your question. Could you repeat it, please?

Fisheries committee  I don't think they have a chance of being successful. As the Supreme Court pointed out, I think the onus is not on indigenous or non-indigenous fishermen to decide how the fishery is going to be managed. It's up to the Crown and the government to decide. There has to be one authority with one set of rules and regulations for all.

Fisheries committee  I was very concerned by the September 17 comments by the minister in which she indicated that unauthorized fishing during the closed season would not be allowed during negotiations. Either she or perhaps the PMO decided that they were going to change that strategy, but that started the chain of events of creating uncertainty, fear and confusion that, in my view, led to the civil unrest that took place.

Fisheries committee  Thank you. This is not the first time that I have addressed the fisheries standing committee on this issue. I joined DFO as a fishery officer in July 1979, and I retired in September 2014. I spent 35 years as a fishery officer, and of those 35 years, 25 were as the area chief of enforcement for the southwest Nova Scotia area of the Scotia Fundy, now Maritimes region.