Thank you, Peter, and my thanks to you both for coming today.
I want to commend you both for your sustained advocacy. I would call it an extremely knowledgeable advocacy and well-placed passion. I know Mr. Blais has acknowledged that, but I guess it helped him understand.
From the time I was a boy, in the fifties, foreign overfishing was a threat to our fisheries. When there was a three-mile territorial limit, the ships were inside the three miles. When it moved to 12 miles, the foreign ships were inside the 12 miles. And when it moved to 200 miles, the ships moved inside the 200-mile limit, with impunity. So it is a matter of survival for the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. Despite the 20-year moratorium, people still see it as part of our obligation to help rebuild this fishery.
Mr. Etchegary, I recall the two of us being witnesses before the fisheries committee in St. John's at the Delta Hotel some years ago, when the issue was custodial management. You and I and many others gave evidence. The result of that committee's study was a unanimous report calling on the Government of Canada to pursue custodial management. Mr. Loyola Hearn was the member for St. John's West at the time and he later became fisheries minister. We all had some hope and expectation that the new government would seek to deliver on its promise of custodial management.
I'd like your reaction to the suggestion, which appears to have been adopted by the government, that these new amendments achieve custodial management. Have you heard that used, and what is your reaction?