I'm going to touch briefly on boat safety. I'm not going to talk too much about stability.
What I'll say is, in order for a fisherperson to keep his or her boat in good and safe condition, he or she must have money. Therefore, DFO should give us an amount of quota that is good for us to maintain our enterprise, so that we will be able to buy new equipment for our boat, put safety equipment aboard our boat. Right now, our enterprises are really getting hit with low quotas and low TACs.
Back in the 1970s, fishing incomes were way down and the vessels that we had were in very bad condition. Sometimes fishermen had to take shifts to keep the water out of their boats. And the reason for that? They didn't make any money. They got 2¢ or 3¢ a pound for their fish and they weren't able to maintain their vessels.
When the fishers' income became higher and vessels were made better and safer, crab was up to $2.50 a pound. You saw the difference in the vessels, how nice they looked, the amount of fibreglass that was put on them and the safety equipment that was aboard them.
I heard the Canadian Coast Guard remark, “We must be doing a good job. We're teaching the fishers in safety courses how to do it.” That has something to do with it, no doubt, but money is the main reason that they're able to afford safety equipment aboard their vessels.
We're headed down that same road again. We do not have the money to keep up with the safety regulations, because of low individual quotas and the total allowable catches. So we have to have quotas in our enterprise to be able to keep our vessels in safe condition.
That's all I have to say on that. Thank you.