It was June of this year when the Federal Court of Appeal ruled, in what's now called the Larocque decision, that fisheries resources do not belong to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and that the minister did not have the authority to finance any of the department's activities by granting a licence to fish and sell, in this case, snow crab.
On October 18, another decision came down from the Federal Court that applied the principles of the Larocque decision. This is called the APPFA decision—the Association des Pêcheurs de Poisson de fond Acadien. Essentially it said the same thing: that we can't do this.
We then looked across the country to see where we have such arrangements whereby there's an allocation of fish that is then sold, with the money coming back in to fund the activities. There are varying degrees in how it's being interpreted, but we've done a fairly thorough analysis as to how much this might entail—we're not sure about that—and how much is absolutely essential to carry on. I think we need to work very closely with the industry to see how we move forward.