Thank you, Mr. Chair.
If the committee would like me to come back and we can work something out, I will come back whenever we can find time. I enjoy it here.
Let me answer some of the questions and deal with some of the points that were skipped in my five minutes.
To Mr. Keddy, let me say that the bureaucracy doesn't run the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. I do. If I am the one who gets the limelight and the credit, I am also the one who takes the blame if something is not done. I have a great team that works with me. Collectively, we try to do what has to be done. I challenge anybody to compare what was done in previous years with the initiatives that our group has had the guts to do. We have done things nobody else would do. Does everybody like what we're doing? Maybe not. Have we made headway and have we helped people? Yes, we have.
As to boat length in your area, that's great when we're talking about certain fisheries, where the length of the boat doesn't affect your competitiveness with your fellow man. But in fixed fisheries, lobster being one, there is no quota. Whoever has the biggest boat, the fastest boat, can go out in bad weather and carry more pots. This puts some people at a disadvantage. Therein lies the problem. But I realize what you're saying. Safety is also an issue. These things have to be looked at, but in a way that's fair to everybody.
As to the cod for the north shore of Quebec and the northern areas, it depends. The bottom line for all of us has to be conservation. When I saw first nations people, this past summer, not even accepting their social and ceremonial fish because of conservation, that really made a statement. We've come a long way. We have to be conscious of that. But will we allocate fairly and will we provide what we can? Absolutely.
I am disappointed that we didn't talk more about ice and sealing. We have an expert on ice here this morning, Mr. Dryden, and I wish he had been able to get involved. He probably handled himself better on ice than any of us or the sealers.
We're trying to create an economically viable, sustainable fishery. If we don't conserve what we have, we're not going anywhere. We have to protect what we have. We have to enhance it. And we can. You see the yellowtail coming back. You see American plaice coming back to the point where we almost have to open up a fishery because of the amount of bycatch. You see cod affecting turbot catch. Do we have a future in the fishery? Absolutely.
Do we have a lot of challenges? Absolutely. It's no good complaining and using excuses. We tried to do what we could, to bring as many people to the table as possible. It's amazing, when you put all the people involved around the table, all of them have a part to play.
So, Mr. Chair, we were pleased to be here. I want to say merci, mes amis du Québec. I want to thank all of you for your support.
This is a great department—I wouldn't change it for the world. But there could be an election tomorrow, the next day, next month, next year. We don't know. The scary thing is, one of you might be here next time you're having a meeting. So I wish you all luck.
Thank you.