Someone made it for this situation, right?
I'll go back to the late-1980s, when the cubic number was a huge issue. I wasted three years of my life, along with Harland, who was there also, chasing to Ottawa, thinking we were really going to get something straightened out here. After three years, I swore off ever attending another one of these meetings, but here I am today, 16 years later, and the cubic number is still 80% there—still doing I don't know what.
When it comes to stability issues, they can go right back to the cubic number. We would bring a perfectly good haul in, cut the sides off, build the boat, come in six inches, and build the sides back up with plywood. Now that wouldn't be added on because it was considered a wash rail.
So if we're talking safety issues...I argued then and I still argue today that DFO should stick to conservation, which they haven't done much of a job at, and put a lot better effort into it. Let the boat builders and CSI deal with building boats.
The boat in Newfoundland rolled over, for those of you who don't know it—it doesn't take a rocket scientist, and you can use these half-dozen words—because it was too goddamn short and too high. It was as simple as that.
As far as the length overall, Robert, you know we've been dealing with this for quite some time.
I've had one argument from day one. If it's 44' 11", it's 44' 11". Put your two pop bottles there. If it's 49' 11", it's 49' 11". I argued then, and I'll still argue today, the numbers were rigged. I read them myself. I don't care who it offends and who it doesn't offend. I'm not here to make friends; I'm here to tell it the way it is. The numbers were rigged. The people who counted them were the people who didn't want the tanks. And here we are, I'll say four years later, still discussing it.
We have approximately 1,000 boats starting lobstering in two weeks. I'll make an estimation, which I know I'm allowed, that at least 500 of these have some form of extension beyond 44' 11". But because of the powers of the gods that be, someone has decided that on April 15 there was a new policy to come out. Someone realized that the extension had to be in a slant form.
Unfortunately, my company, which employs 60 people, started two boats last November and launched them in May. And guess what? Out of 1,000 boats, those are the only two boats to date that will not be licensed to go lobster fishing.
I have a serious problem with this. It's discrimination; it's unlawful.
Gerald, you know I've asked you to work with me on this for the last six months. Until someone has balls enough to stand up and say the line is here—wherever the line is. If it's 44' 11", it's 44' 11".
You know, I get the answers—and I'm not going to point my fingers at anybody—I go in, and they say, Gary, sorry, we won't be bothering all the ones that had licences last year, but because the two that you built were launched on April 18 and May 12, even though one fisherman borrowed pretty near $1 million and another one borrowed $500,000 or $600,000, sorry, those two boats are not going to go lobstering. I'm still being told that today.
As simple as it may sound, all I'm saying is, what is so difficult about classing these two in the same category as hundreds and hundreds out there, many of them exceeding 50 feet? I don't want to be put on the spot, because I work for all of them, but I'm telling you right now, a lot of them out there are far beyond 50 feet.
So some of the people at the meetings—I sat in on some of the councils in Halifax when this was in the court system—were the powers that be who said, oops, we didn't realize that these boats were over 44' 11" until a couple of years ago. Harland and I sat on the board with some of these people, and I was chairperson of the committee. They were the same people who 15 or 16 years ago knew that stern extensions were an accepted practice, and it's been an accepted practice for at least 15 years. Whether it's right or wrong, it's been accepted. If we are going to make a law, it's always been a known fact that a 44' 11" boat is not the most efficient boat to run.
But as far as the stability is concerned.... When I got into this business 30 years ago, every individual—and I hope there's nobody here, as I don't want to insult anybody—I ever had to answer to was from Portugal, Scotland, or England. They manned the whole office in Halifax, in Dartmouth.
In the year 2020...for God's sake, don't we have technology enough in North America? My suggestion is—and I mean this seriously—if they really want to build some good sea boats, they should hire Stanley Greenwood, because that's the man who has proven more than everybody else—every engineer, every boat that's ever come here.... George, you know it. We had the navy, all of the boats.... You had to spike your boots to the floor if you wanted to stand up in one of them. True?