Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, gentlemen, thank you for coming. I really do appreciate this. There's probably some short notice involved here, and I'm glad you recognize that it's quite an issue for us, an eye opener to say the least. Mr. O'Neill, by your expression I'm sure you understand how grey this is.
In my research I was reading some of the chat going back and forth regarding some of the talks over the fishery subsidies. I noticed here that you mentioned that some of the inshore fishery would be exempt, or at least it would not be affected too much. But from what I can gather, the only emphasis on who will be exempt, when it comes to the subsidies, is on the developing nations. From this I understand there's a big push back from Canada, EU, Japan, Norway, United States, New Zealand, and Australia. On the other side of the thing, I'm assuming our subsidies are much higher than those. But they're really targeting the specificity. We have a situation here: when it comes to income support, we have a particular program that is set for fish harvesters in the EI system. I don't mean to meander about here from my research, but nonetheless it seems to me that the developing nations are the group that will receive more of a fair hearing than the developed nations.
Second, this text is so specific. They are really zeroing in on the specifics so that some of our programs, such as infrastructure, EI, and income support, are really going to have a hard time getting through this.