That's a very good question, but there are two key points on that. Again it's the “he said, she said”, but it was never said to the CCFI. The talk is that there was a discussion between ACOA and the Marine Institute, where an ACOA official said this was it and there would be no further funding. A decision as significant as that should have been given in writing to the Canadian Centre for Fisheries Innovation, or told to the centre or the executive verbally. If you're going to make such a strong decision about an organization that's been around for 20 years, it should be stated to the centre directly.
Second, at the same time that statement was made between ACOA and the Marine Institute--not CCFI--Minister Hearn was telling the provincial ministers and me to come on board in a new, future-renewed model for the centre. So we developed a plan, based on that recommendation, to bring the provinces to the table and reduce the burden on ACOA. I had discussions with ACOA and said we were committed to continuing to explore options over time to further reduce and, if possible at some point, completely eliminate the need for ACOA support. But you can't go from 100% one day to zero the next. It takes time to develop such a strategy. Going from 100% down to a little over 50% in terms of the request is a significant step in the right direction.
To be fair, we did explore other models and options for the centre--other scenarios. We brought our board and some of our industry together to go through some options. They're presented in the proposal we gave them. The clear direction from industry and our board members was that if you have a model that's not broken, why fix it? If you have a centre that's been so successful, industry-driven, and a tremendous model, it's hard to argue.
There has been some discussion lately on merit. But you can't debate the merit of this centre. Perhaps that's why we don't have ACOA here today--I wouldn't be here either, for that matter. You can argue about third-party delivery; there's a response for it. You can argue about available funds, but you can't argue about merit. I'd debate anybody on that point.
I hope I'm answering your question in that sense.