Thank you very much.
Minister Shea, congratulations on your election victory and being appointed to cabinet. You have a very important portfolio for the Atlantic region and for the area that I represent. I can only echo what my colleague had to say. We certainly hope things go well.
I may as well give you the questions and then you can answer them.
I think you're fully aware that there's quite a suspected problem in the price of lobsters in Prince Edward Island this year. I think you were involved, in a previous life, in amalgamation of processing plants. How do you feel that worked? How do you feel about the consolidation of the lobster fishery?
I would like you to deal with issues such as, if fishermen have 300 traps, two of them can go together and fish 500 traps. This is one of the pilot projects. I would like you to deal with that.
Also, what is your view of the points in the 10-point plan? There are a number of things in the 10-point plan that are of great concern to fishermen.
There's a lot of money being spent. We're going into deficit in the federal government, and I believe rightly so, to assist industries across Canada, but the fisheries are also an industry, and a very important industry, where I come from. Looking at the south side, area 26A in particular, and other areas around Prince Edward Island, is there an intent to put in place a buyout for the lobster industry in Prince Edward Island? That would allow the people left in the industry to survive and would give a decent retirement to the people who leave.
In any time left you can indicate what you plan to do on the financing, looking at the situation where our processors dealt with banks in Iceland and now they can't do that. Where are they going to get their financing?
Thank you very much.