We are still committed to preserving the independence of the inshore fleet in Atlantic Canada. People in trust agreements have a period of time in which to get out of those, and the person holding the licence in trust has to find a way within the timeframe to reissue the licence to independent core fishermen. That is still in place.
What we did, though, was to tell a number of fishermen that we knew some of them had bought other people's licences, and that within these LFAs we needed to work with their colleagues and peers to find a way to allow some of this licence combining, whether through stacking or the combining of two licences into one. We needed to find a way for that to go ahead. When we had those discussions, we found that on combining two enterprises, they didn't want to have 200% of the traps. They wanted to have the benefit accrue to the rest of the LFA fishers as well, so you could combine the percentage. You usually end up with 150% of what one enterprise would have, when you combine two into one.
That means there is a benefit for the others, because there is a reduction in effort. That means that there should be a better CPUE, catch per unit effort, for the remaining traps, and that helps the rest of the LFA, but it also helps the two that combined to reduce their costs and find a way to augment their earnings.
It's been in place for a number of years and in a number of LFAs, and it has not created the same kinds of concerns that some expressed regarding other schemes to reduce effort. But it has definitely been an attempt on our part to find a balance between benefiting the two that combined into one, and benefiting the rest of the fishers in the LFA.