The issue is not about not having confidence in them. I will use the words you used during the break. We have no intention of being confrontational with the fishermen. The idea is to move closer together and to have a stronger consensus. The challenge is bigger than that. We want to work with the fishermen, but we are also facing pressure from other parties. For example, Cosewic, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife, has decided to submit a notice for a new review of cod in light of scientific opinions that were submitted. So we are facing a situation where there are a number of stakeholders. We want to take the views of scientists very seriously. In fact, as Mr. Cotton mentioned, the minister has decided to put in place a process to bring the groups closer together. We are planning to hold a symposium early in the fall. We are currently working with the fishermen. We have provided them with some resource to prepare a comprehensive brief so that we have the bases of their approach. The idea is not to have a confrontational attitude. We have a picture that we have been following for the past few years, and it is showing a decline. We can compare the southern gulf with the northern gulf, where we have a picture that is indicating the contrary. We can see a recovery there because the natural mortality rate seems to be decreasing. But we are not seeing that picture in the southern gulf where we know that the two stocks are very different. We are not talking about the same stock at all. Although we could say that the gulf is a large lake, it would be a large lake with two very distinct fish populations. If we had the same signal in the southern gulf, a signal showing a recovery, that the fish are larger, that mortality is decreasing—which we are not seeing at all as mortality is decreasing quickly and we think that the grey seal has an impact at that level—we could start saying yes, we can go there.
I don't doubt the fishermen's ability to find the fish. They are professionals, they know their work. But we also have scientists who are professionals, who must follow very strict protocols, and it is at that level that we want to reach an agreement. If there is an issue with the time when the surveys are done, we could consider other periods and try to conduct the surveys at other times to determine if the current models are false.