Before the previous fisheries minister was elected, he was briefed many times. As a matter of fact, the man who later became minister came to our association 10 or 15 times and was given full information on our definition of custodial management, going back to 1992. He was positively committed to the concept of custodial management that we had defined. Then he was elected. But I'm positive that this was put forward as a concept for improved management of the Canadian groundfishery.
The first attempt to put that forward was made at the NAFO meeting in Spain. There was objection to it, which we expected. You don't expect those countries to accept it offhand. It's a process that's going to take time, like the evolution of marine law. What happened was that having recorded commitments, both the Prime Minister and the future fisheries minister committed to extending jurisdiction and to custodial management. They found themselves in a position where NAFO was becoming very aggressive, taking aggressive actions through the new NAFO Convention.
The result was that, some way or another, they had to find a way to come up with what could be described as custodial management. One of the commissioners who was at the meeting in Spain two weeks ago said that the former fisheries minister had clouded the issue and misled the public by suggesting that there was custodial management.