We're into it already. Thanks.
Thanks very much to the witnesses. Thanks very much for that recapping of the economics. It sounds pretty 1980s DFO, though. If someone were to celebrate the fact that we can still catch more cod--we shouldn't shut down plants, we shouldn't shut down the fishery, we shouldn't do anything, because here it is 1989 and we have people who depend on it and we can make money at it--that would be a good reason not to take a responsible point of view of conservation. That seems to be what you're saying.
The NAFO Scientific Council said on Greenland halibut that they really strongly recommend 14,000 tonnes as the total allowable catch. That was the preferred recommendation. It might have been, arguably, in some minds, within the parameters or ranges of science. But 14,000, not 16,000, was the preferred catch rate, and that's true of all four species NAFO made decisions on, whether it be 3M cod, which they really suggested be at 4,100 tonnes but which came in at 5,500 tonnes.... It sounds pretty 1980s DFO to actually glorify that.
But I want to get specifically to the objection procedure. You state, Mr. Balfour, that committee members should take it that the objection procedure is now gone. It's all binding. All decisions of NAFO are binding. Don't worry. Good decisions will prevail and will be done on a timely basis.
That's not actually correct. My understanding is that if a contracting party wants to object to any particular NAFO decision--a contracting party or parties--they simply file an objection as they did before. The provision is still available in the revised convention. They file an objection, and they fish as they see fit. The convention specifically prescribes that. They fish as they see fit up to and including the time an ad hoc panel can be established. The ad hoc panel will then convene. It will meet, it will discuss, it will debate, and it will come to a recommendation. Meanwhile, the objecting party is still fishing at levels it sees fit.
Then the ad hoc panel will report its recommendation back to NAFO, and a special meeting of NAFO then has to be convened. Then if there's further objection, which there can be, it has to go to one of the measures under UNFA or UNCLOS to have the matter referred, as prescribed by UNCLOS or UNFA, to something such as the International Court of Justice. We're talking about a period of about three to four years.
Is there anything in this convention that will create a binding decision of the original NAFO decision within weeks of any objection procedure being filed--not months, not years, but weeks? Because the quota will be cut. As we know, once the European Union--Spain or Portugal, in particular--filed objections in the past, they basically had their full quotas, and then some, caught within at least six months.
So really, the issue is what in this convention ensures that a timely, binding decision is made within days or weeks of an objection being filed. I think the answer is nothing.