Fisheries committee  In the business world, it comes down to whoever is willing to fish it for the least amount of money. We see our counterparts in your beautiful province, MP Barron, in B.C. We've talked to colleagues at international conferences about people having to pay three-quarters of the value of the shore price just to go fishing.

Fisheries committee  The fishery is like any entrepreneurial business based on a commodity. There are ups and downs in the fishery. I'll quote again the speech from our chair at the rally in Grande-Rivière last week. He said he's faced difficult times because of quota reductions and/or price reductions and interest rates and fuel rates, but he's never really been faced with the situation where he's been told that basically he's done.

Fisheries committee  Really quickly, I would say that there's always some risk, but people deal with the ups and downs. When you take away the lifeline—

Fisheries committee  Yes, I guess we were all hoping that the size would be more in line with what was known about the biology of the species. In saying that, I think that we probably should have started developing it more, for sure, earlier on, and certainly we need to start developing it now.

Fisheries committee  No doubt there's a lag there for sure. We're accused of being too aggressive sometimes in the industry, I would say, but certainly there's often a lag. I think the poetic justice—not the justice, and I guess it's the opposite term here—is that we put on more and more grates to eliminate bycatch, to protect Atlantic halibut and redfish and all these species in 1994, and that very technology that promoted conservation is now part of the reason, arguably, that shrimp harvesters are at a commercial breaking point.

Fisheries committee  These plants are often the sole source in these communities, anyone would say, contributing hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in revenue and in tax revenue through the work that they do. What you will see is a diminishment of not only the community the plant is in, but also the surrounding area as well.

Fisheries committee  They absolutely do. I've talked to processors. These plants have the capacity, with some reasonable investment in the machinery in the plants, and the workers have the expertise to work on either shellfish or groundfish. We have these plants, like one in Port au Choix, which was probably the first shrimp plant in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Fisheries committee  There's definitely a very strong correlation. The redfish are staying further to the north. We know temperature is a factor. I've been to most of the assessments, up until the last one. We know that there's particularly juvenile shrimp in the bellies of these redfish. They're just getting at the size now where they're going to consume shrimp even at a higher rate.

Fisheries committee  I think it's a very fair statement to say that this the biggest contributing factor, yes.

Fisheries committee  No. They put out the Atlantic fisheries fund, which was certainly a help, but there was no work led by DFO. The work on bycatch, on species split, is a complicated issue, but there are two species there. One is much less abundant than the other, so you need a plan for that. We have Atlantic halibut, which you heard has exploded.

Fisheries committee  Yes. Thank you for your question, MP Small. I mentioned that this fleet was the basis for the fishery on the northern peninsula for many years now, and it provided most, or a good portion, of the processing work. As you probably know, but I will just highlight, the shrimp stocks have been declining precipitously.

Fisheries committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the committee for taking the time to hear from the Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union today. Our union represents over 14,000 working people in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the vast majority of whom are employed in the seasonal fishing industry.