This is a negotiation between the buyers' association and the government, of course. It's not an openly public discussion right now.
In terms of the profitability of the fishery you were asking about, over the last two years we've seen an approximately $2-a-pound decrease each year in the price of lobsters. With the recession it became evident last fall that it's possible we could see another decrease this year. At the same time we've seen increasing costs of operating our boats.
Leonard mentioned the increase in the landings here on the islands. The landings were at a high in the early 1990s, and when the fishermen got bigger boats, new gear, a lot of fishermen used double-end traps at that time. That was why there was a ban afterwards on the double-end traps as part of the conservation measures. We were able to rebound somewhat with the landings, but the profitability has been decreasing over probably the last five years of the lobster fishery. It's something that concerns us a lot.
It was mentioned that we have a high cost for licensing, $750 a year here; I've heard that it's the second highest in Canada. So we find that onerous.
The price of fuel was mentioned before. There are still a lot of taxes built into that cost, and we feel that if the taxes were eliminated from that cost it might be something that would help the fishermen.