I would not attempt to try to speak on their behalf as to why they would be supporting this convention. The only observation I would make is that quite often there is a tendency for the industry to support measures that are being taken by government because there is a somewhat symbiotic relationship that sometimes takes place. The reality is that quite often we see Canada supporting measures that are not in keeping with the precautionary principle. That's one of the reasons there's a need for the people who are involved in management decisions to be at greater arm's length from this whole picture.
I made a comment earlier that I thought we were dealing with an anachronism in terms of public administration when it comes to the fishery. In other sectors--the energy sector, for example, in oil and gas, and in the communications sector--we have quasi-judicial boards that make decisions, and the decisions are taken with all the information being in the public domain. In the fishery, there is not the same opportunity for other people to speak up and make their voices heard.
There are times when I think people in industry would like to see the fishery continued, even when the quotas should be reduced, the mesh sizes increased, and things made more conservation-oriented. That's the nature of the beast. The nature of the beast is that business people are concerned about the bottom line, today, and I think there's a certain amount of myopia in that people tend to say they'll worry about tomorrow when tomorrow comes. It's in that area that there need to be people who are concerned about the fish.
We once had a minister who said that he was not the minister of fish, he was the minister of the people. What he said was that he was going to make decisions that were in the best interests of the people, which meant he was going to keep the fishery open when it should have been closed.
Sometimes somebody has to look after the fish. Somebody has to look after the interests of the fish; otherwise, we won't have them in the future. What we have to do from a public policy perspective in Canada and elsewhere in the world is make sure there is a good, strong conservation voice being articulated and present at some of these international meetings, so that people who are more concerned with the bottom line don't get preoccupied with the problems of meeting their bottom line today and lose sight of the bigger picture. That's all I can say.