Thank you, Minister.
Now we'll quickly sum up the needs for the short term and the long term in two slides. The short term involves marketing initiatives, some of which have recently been announced. We have to move forward to expand our markets and get some form of immediate economic assistance to our fishing industry. We've focused on EI, and there is also some other programming. This ties in to the recent announcement that Minister Shea has made about the immediate fiscal needs of our harvesters. We need industry rationalization or other restructuring. Some new programming has been announced on that front, so the provinces are prepared to work with the federal government and DFO on that front.
There's also a need for financing, for credit for the fishermen and the processors. That's going to move forward in the very immediate future. There are some flexibility options in loan boards, but there may be some needs for other industry sectors.
There's a strong need for regional cooperation for stakeholders to work together, and that has to do with the lobster council I referenced earlier. That is up and running, or trying to get up and running, so there's an immediate need to support this particular group so that they can get organized and start to move forward to address the needs of the industry from an industry perspective.
As far as the longer term goes, I'll turn it over to Minister Doucet from New Brunswick to show some of the things that we see are needed in the longer term.