When the initial decision was taken, it was a somewhat controversial decision, if you recall, in the sense that competing interests that were looking for access to that resource accepted the decision at the time that 5,000 metric tonnes of shrimp resource—for the committee's perspective, this is basically the equivalent of anywhere from $5 million to $8 million worth of resource on an annual basis, which is a lot of shrimp.... Other stakeholders that did not get access to that shrimp reluctantly agreed to accept the management plan on the basis that at least valuable shrimp science was being conducted.
What you're telling me, the committee, and all fishery stakeholders is that while the requirement to conduct the science ceased as a result of the Larocque decision, those who were assigned the 5,000 tonnes of shrimp still retained the allocation of the 5,000 tonnes, but with no strings attached. Now it's basically part of their allocation. They do not have any legal requirement under any agreement to conduct any scientific activity.
Wouldn't it have been more appropriate, given the fact that when this allocation was made, when the decision was taken that the 5,000 tonnes was for a specific purpose and that the Northern Coalition were the only participants who could actually effectively do the science and would therefore be the recipients of the 5,000 tonnes.... With the decision to terminate the agreement as a result of the Larocque decision, wouldn't it have been fairer to go back to all stakeholders and say, since science will no longer be done with this, we now have an obligation to share among all stakeholders, all fishing interests that participate in the northern shrimp fishery?
Are you telling me this was not done?