There are two key points on that.
Overall, this “he said, she said” is not what this is all about. This is about the loss of a highly valued fisheries, research, and development organization--or the potential loss. We shouldn't be debating who said this sort of stuff.
There are two key points. One is that CCFI was never told. We had a contract in place last March through the Innovative Communities Fund that called for us to do an operational sustainability review. It made no mention or reference to the fact that there would be no further funding from ACOA. That's clear. CCFI, its executive, its board, was not told. That's a fact.
The second point, which I think is also an important point, is that then federal Fisheries and Oceans Minister Loyola Hearn, in discussions both with us as a centre and with the Atlantic Council of Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers...and the ministers can attest to this, because there was a strong advocacy moving forward from the ministers to Minister Hearn to support the centre. His comment was, yes, we're going to support the centre now, but going forward, why don't the provinces come to the table and support a renewed mandate for the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation to come on board with us. That was the comment that was directly made to the ministers and to us. Now, Minister Hearn has since retired, so obviously that's not on the table. But his comments were clear: he wanted the provinces to come to the table. There's no doubt.
We were not told. We were told to bring the provinces on board, which is why I spent much of last year travelling the beautiful Maritimes, talking to the provinces, ministers, bureaucrats, officials in industry, and getting them on board. We went out and did what we were asked to do, which is what makes this a little bit frustrating from our standpoint in terms of where we are today.