Thank you, Mr. Chair.
We continue to want to enter into collaborative arrangements with the fishing industry. There's nothing in the court decision that forbids this. We're not threatening anyone that there won't be a fishery if they don't give us money for a collaborative arrangement. We believe we've received sufficient funds in the 2007 budget to allow necessary conservation requirements to be met, so that fisheries will be able to proceed with or without collaborative arrangements.
I believe some witnesses indicated that in the absence of this additional information there would be a less sound basis for the management of the fishery, and there's certainly some truth in that. This could mean that in the short term some catches may be higher, some may be lower, but there's no direct connection between having specific additional information and whether the quota is higher or lower. It makes things more uncertain. We're not requiring agreement in order to have a fishery, and we believe we have sufficient funds to meet the essential conservation requirements to allow fisheries to proceed.