Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, gentlemen, for having come to meet with us this morning.
I also wish to thank our colleague, Greg Kerr, for having welcomed us with such pomp in his riding.
We are talking about processing plants. And what frightens me is seeing large plants snuff out the smaller ones, seeing a loss of competition in the lobster market and seeing fishermen paying the price for this. On the other hand, people say that a larger plant will have greater means so as to be able to process lobster appropriately, and there is also the issue of quality control.
What you are saying is that when you unload your boat, the lobster that you have in your hold is as good as when you caught it, that it is a sure thing and that it does not matter that you may have had it on board for two or three days.
Last year, when we travelled about the country for our small craft harbour report, I was impressed by the pounds. I wondered about the sheets of plywood that we were seeing in the bay, and what was underneath then. They looked like sidewalks on water, and I later learned that they were holding tanks. In my area, we have whales and seals, so we do not put our lobster in pounds.
Do you know for how long lobster can be kept in these pounds and in the holds of your boats? Is there any risk over time that the quality of the lobster decrease?