Thanks for the opportunity to mention that I did make available some copies of a proposal we've been developing with this alliance. It would be made available to you shortly, I suppose, or on your way back. There is a short brief that was circulated, so that gives you at least a short synopsis. There is the larger version that gives you some details, so you'll have the chance to read that.
Bankruptcies in this type of context are only going to keep licences in the game. You're absolutely right. In my view, what's going to happen is even worse than just keeping licences in. You're going to have perhaps some older folks who have spent the greater part of their lives in the fishery, sometimes second or third generation, losing their licences to bankruptcy near retirement. This, on its own, in our view, is quite catastrophic. We have to find a way to have these fish harvesters, who might have spent 50 years in the fishery, to respectfully leave the fishery.
On the other hand, we also have to find a way for some newcomers to come in, but not in this way. They'll have to borrow quite an important amount of money to be able to get in and will fish much harder. It will be that much more difficult for the resource to renew itself. So in my view, you have a no-win situation with bankruptcies.
The only way you can do it, which is what we're proposing in this document, is for the federal government to find a way to create some form of fund where you will correct the errors of the past--and not a 100% government-led buyback program where you have an inflation in prices, etc., and all sorts of consequences to that, but a fund. The different fleets have different ways of seeing this, but the industry proposes a way of being able to rationalize the fleet to the level they find acceptable and be able to contribute to that and do what is necessary in exchange for the resource to be more sustainable than it is.