Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Thanks to each and every one of you for coming to visit with us today to discuss issues of mutual concern on the fishery.
In Canada right now we have a discussion going on within the fishery of whether or not it should be a more private fishery in commercial hands, to be dictated by, for example, the department regarding resources and where it should go, or whether it should remain a common property resource, which means it is owned by the people of Canada, to be distributed in that sort of equitable manner. So that is the discussion that we're having now.
As you may or may not know, New Zealand and Iceland have moved to having private fisheries called ITQs, which are individual transferable quotas. That means that if the state gives an individual fisherman a quota, that individual could transfer that quota to somebody else and receive some remuneration for that.
That is a debate we're having in this country. Some countries have gone that way, and it's been quite successful. Others have said it hasn't been successful. So that's one of the considerations your government would have to take into effect and would have to study.
Also, the protection of fish habitat requires enforcement. How seriously do you want to add that enforcement? In Iceland they have 50-metre guns on top of their vessels to assure any fishing violators that they will be persuaded not to do that anymore, if I may put it that way. That is something to be taken into consideration. As well, there is the need to set up certain fragile ecosystems within Indonesian waters as no-fish zones, for fish habitats and for nursery grounds for the stocks, because they need a place to go to thrive without there being any attempt to catch them while they're in those areas. So a chain of marine protected areas would need to be established as well.
Those are just some of the concerns I think you would need to look at in that particular regard.
Go right ahead.