This is just a very quick example. With snow crab, you have stock assessment surveys. They're done yearly. They allow you to know, in real time, how much available commercial biomass there is in the water. As an example, in 2003, just before Larocque—the decision of Larocque comes from this situation—the co-management agreement failed. Negotiations with the department failed because the department wanted to increase the capacity in the fishery to an unsustainable level—just to give you an idea—from 130 licences to over 700 allocations. At that time we said that we were not going to finance our own destruction, so we refused the co-management agreement.
When the minister saw that, he cut the quota by 4,000 tonnes, saying he would have no money to finance the science. To cut the quota by 4,000 tonnes in 2003 meant a lack of income of $25 million for communities in northern New Brunswick and on the Gaspé Peninsula. After that, they decided to use the 50 tonnes from Larocque, and we said no, they could not do that. That's why we went to court with Larocque, to put things in perspective.
These are the types of situations we're faced with.