Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you very much for the very thoughtful presentation. There was a lot of good information there to digest.
From the point of view of members sitting at this table and the constituents we serve, one of the greatest points of concern that we encounter with our constituents and your stakeholders is consistent, responsible information that fishermen can take with confidence.
I'd like to give you two fisheries management examples where confidence has been somewhat shaken in the department's ability to actually effect good scientific analysis to assist managers.
Situation number one is cod in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Many of us remember in 2003 there was a decision that was taken to put cod in the northern gulf and southern gulf into a moratorium. That was based on scientific information that was coming out at the time. It caused a lot of political, economic, and social upheaval. It cost the local economy of the region approximately $22 million in direct spending and probably more in indirect spending. On that advice from science, the fishery was shut down. We now know, of course, that the advice was probably somewhat suspect in the sense that the fishery was open the following year, and just about every year since we've had increases in quota, therefore causing a certain amount of concern on the part of fishermen as to whether or not the original decision to place a moratorium on the fishery was a valid one.
The second circumstance would be shrimp in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in area 4, in the estuary region. There was a decision to cut gulf shrimp by 27%. Other stocks had been increasing. It was based on scientific evidence. Even though adjacent stocks were deemed by DFO at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute to be healthy, the northern gulf shrimp stock was viewed to be in jeopardy. There was an original recommendation to cut it by 27%. That was eventually cut to 20%, and now we have almost a full reinstatement of that particular quota.
The point I'm getting at is that fishermen need to have confidence that when DFO is acting using the precautionary principle, every possible element, every resource, is put to task to provide good stock assessments and to provide recommendations to managers as to exactly what TACs and quotas should be.
In your review, has that been front and centre in the decision-making process, because in those two fisheries alone—and I could cite more--I've just described to you economic costs in the tens of millions of dollars that most would agree in hindsight were deemed to be unnecessary?