My view is that fish is a public resource. The fishers pay for it through a licence fee. So it's almost like a tax on a tax on a tax. To take the resource and use it to pay for science or management effectively reduces the amount of catch that each licence-holder has available to them.
If you take it by way of cash or potential catch, it's still taking it away. So fish have been used for quite a while. I would argue quite strenuously that legislators need to sit back and find out what is indeed the legal and constitutional responsibility of the Government of Canada to fund a viable fishery.
Phil Eidsvik here can speak to that. In the terms of union with the Province of British Columbia, the federal crown indicated it would—What are the words, Phil?