Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Just to complement what Danny has said, what you have heard are the words of a hard-working, honest fisherman who makes his living from the front of the boat—not from an office, not from investments; he does it by hard work and through an honest day's labour. He and his colleagues are all in the same sort of situation in their area.
I would like to commend their organization, along with our colleagues here, Francis Morrissey and Craig Avery, in that these people a number of years ago had a warden program, which was a protection program under which the fishermen worked in cooperation with the federal government. It worked well. Now, because of various issues in the 1990s, when we had large recessions and all the tightening of the belts, if you will, and the chipping away of budgets, and we had to pay down the debt, and all those sorts of things, which are necessary, these people lost their program and haven't had an opportunity to regain it. In fact, Danny's colleagues in the Western Gulf Fishermen's Association even make financial contributions to the department to maintain some extra warden protection in their area.
So I'd like to commend them. I was with the department at the time. I worked in fisheries management for a good many years, worked on the native programs, development, licensing, and various other types of things. It was these types of ideas, generated by fishermen—good, honest, solid ideas—and brought up not out of a concept of trying to take money from the government, but of working cooperatively with them to resolve a problem.... I commend them on their efforts over the years.
As to their lobster buyback program, I think they've done an excellent job. I've looked at their program in quite some depth, and I'd like to see your committee support not only their efforts but the efforts of all the various locals on P.E.I. to reduce the number of fishermen. I think everybody wins when we do that, and having the fishermen be part of the solution is going to make resolving the problem that much easier.
I commend Danny on his dedication and his work in the fishery as well.