Mr. Blais asked a question and I will answer it. We attended a meeting held by Transport Canada in Rimouski. This was the only meeting where we were told about the regulation, the new policy on fishing boat safety, that the Department wanted to implement. As I said earlier, stability standards were on the agenda, but we had no details on the matter. I recall very well that the fishers present in the room were all unanimously against stability testing. Mr. Cormier was present, in fact.
Did they continue pushing ahead with this and do they want to make stability testing mandatory today? The answer to this question is probably yes, because the matter is now before the fisheries and oceans committee. At this meeting, we were simply told that a fishing boat would have to be subject to a stability test, to simplified stability tests in the case of boats under 15 tons, with the exception of high risk boats. That is what everybody was against. There are no details about what is a high risk, about what a simplified stability test would entail, about what is a high risk boat. There were no details. So all of the fishers in attendance opposed such a test.
As Mr. Cormier said so clearly, when you have owned a boat for 10, 15 or 20 years, you have already done the test. We don't need anyone to come and tell us how the boat is going to list or roll: we've seen it.
Thank you.