A very good question it was too.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, Minister--and your officials--for coming. We all have questions on this side. I'll lead off, and hopefully we'll get some others as well. I'll try to be brief.
I think there's always been a sense of a disconnect in Atlantic Canada between our policies--for example, our fleet separation and our owner-operator policies--and what actually happens on the ground.
In your comments you referred to an initiative to preserve the independence of the inshore fleet. Can you give us a bit more detail? I think it's been a year or so since you announced that. Can you tell us where we're going with that and how it's being received? Also, can you tell us what you hope to achieve by it, apart from just getting these policy objectives implemented? What are your main goals for it?
As a follow-up question, do you have any intention of seeing a policy like that implemented in the Pacific region?