Thank you kindly.
Thanks, Honourable Hearn, or should I call you Senator Hearn? I hope you had an opportunity to get the background check done, or is that the other Loyola? It's great to have you back among friends.
We do have some serious business. It was indeed your Conservative colleagues, former colleagues, who asked you here today. I think there's going to be some good value for us all, indeed.
I think it's fair to say that when you leave office, you leave office. It's not necessarily prudent or appropriate to drag those who have left public office back into the public limelight, but you were indeed asked here, so we'll take advantage of that.
Loyola, one of the things in the hearts and minds of people from Newfoundland and Labrador as they look back over the history of this issue, and your political career as well, is that you were a very strong critic of NAFO, especially in your opposition days. You were a very strong critic of the Government of Canada's handling of foreign overfishing. You said in your past career that NAFO was fundamentally broken, that it could never be fixed, and that Canada has to get out of NAFO, and you were a very passionate spokesperson for custodial management.
One of the things that's caught Newfoundlanders and Labradorians off guard is that in your tenure of office as fisheries minister you had labelled NAFO and foreign overfishing as just that, but before you left office as fisheries minister, you said that Canada actually had custodial management of the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks. In fact, the Conservative Party of Canada made that statement in its 2008 election platform. It is now the official policy of the Government of Canada that custodial management is not required to be achieved because we already have it.
Given the fact that there is nothing that has changed in NAFO—the convention has not changed at all, although there are amendments before NAFO and before Canada for revision to the convention—and you made these comments and the Government of Canada made this commitment that custodial management of the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks is policy and always has been, how does your past criticism of NAFO and of Canadian governments' handling of foreign overfishing mesh and jibe with the fact that you now believe we've always had custodial management? How can the two relate? It seems to me you were incorrect either now or then. Which is it?