I did read an article where a scientist stated that seals in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence ate 40,000 metric tonnes of cod.
I believe that what fishermen are looking for is a point of no return. That is why we are here today. Four thousand tonnes of cod in the south of the Gulf of the St. Lawrence is a drop in the ocean. It is not true that we will destroy the resource by taking 4,000 tonnes of cod.
I'm going to explain something to you. In the northern part of the gulf, at 7,000 tonnes, the harvesting rate versus the total biomass is about 20%. In the southern part of the gulf, at 4,000 tonnes, the harvesting rate would be about 2 or 3%. So we can't understand.
The scientists who will appear after us will probably tell you that in the southern part of the gulf there are no more large codfish. We know why they can no longer find any large codfish: it is because of the gear they are using. As I explained a little earlier, in the southern part of the gulf at present, zone 4T2 is closed, because people cannot fish flounder due to an overabundance of cod. They are using 170 square mesh size to fish flounder. But they are catching too much cod in comparison with their flounder catch. They are catching cod because there is cod. We are not asking for 50,000 tonnes, we asking for 4,000 tonnes, to understand.
Here is our question to the department: Can we give ourselves one last chance to work together? Let's work together for three years to develop a program that takes science into account. We need these people, because we are not scientists. But I fully believe that scientists also need our contribution, our knowledge and expertise. When I have a toothache, I go to the dentist, not to a barber shop. So people who are working in the fishery should turn to the fishermen.