Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Gentlemen, thank you very much for your presentation.
Let me just play the devil's advocate here. Obviously if a wharf is not safe, if it's shut down or closed because of safety reasons, that fisherman and his catch will go somewhere else. We have heard, very clearly, that every wharf we go to needs an investment. No one hasn't asked for money--for extensions, for dredging, for wharf repair, for new wharves, etc. That's an awful lot of money in requests.
If the future of the fishery, as we've heard from one individual, is that the industry may itself be consolidated with fewer boats--bigger boats, but fewer fishermen accessing the fish--and if that indeed is the case fifteen or twenty years from now, then why do you have to have all these wharves in these communities?
Remember, I'm just playing the devil's advocate.
If DFO comes to the point where they say, “No, we don't have the money, this wharf will end up closing because of safety reasons, those people will go somewhere else”, and so on, then do you think--I just throw this out for your thought process--that every community should have a harbour and a wharf facility? If not, should there be consolidation in the industry in order to better manage and better use the dollars? Or should every community continue having its wharf and harbour as the lifeblood--you had indicated this before--of the community?
I say that because I remember when grain elevators--the lifeblood of small rural prairie communities--started coming down in the Prairies. When the grain elevators went down, the farmers had to take their grain further distances down the road. I see that happening in the industry of fishing as well.
Please tell me I'm wrong.