Both of you are telling us something that, although not universal, is being heard more and more. The conservation resource status is always a big issue with a fishery. It's always a major concern for fishermen to create the circumstances for a sustainable yield. Correct me if I'm wrong, but it's the economics of this fishery that seem to be the fundamental problem in 2009, more so than the resource status issues. From the testimony and perspectives of the fishermen, it seems that there are LFAs that have significant resource issues, while a good portion of the LFAs in Atlantic Canada seem to have a management practice that is producing sustainable results.
One of the things that we as a committee have been struck by is the marketing of the product. We have a very high-value product that seems to be regularly marketed as a high-volume, low-value product. At least, that's where this seems to be going. McDonald's is now producing McLobster sandwiches, and Subway has a fast-food lobster sandwich of its own. This seems a bit inconsistent with the marketing position that lobsters have enjoyed in the past.
Is that a function of the fact that we have some pretty large-scale buyers and processing companies that dominate the industry? Is that what's driving this? Would smaller buyers, smaller processing operations, and boutique operations that concentrate on high quality for high-end consumers be better for this industry? I think this is an important point for the committee to grapple with.