Thank you very much, Mr. Blais.
The questions you raise are certainly very good ones. I'm not sure how close you are to what has gone on in NAFO. I don't think NAFO is something that would be very high on your agenda. I don't think it will come higher than seals, for instance, or small craft harbours. I'm sure, being part of the committee, you're well aware of what goes on.
Number one, I completely disagree with you when you say that nothing has changed. A tremendous amount has changed. I don't agree with you when you say that we gave away more than we got. We gave away nothing—absolutely, positively nothing. Unlike the case years ago, when you had the voting system, which some of the people who have been here want to get back to—you voted on everything, but in order to get enough people supporting you, you had to buy the votes, and we gave away fish many times, and that's well known—we gave away absolutely nothing to get the changes that have been made.
You talked about people from Newfoundland who have been here who know the fishery well and are concerned, and about their credibility. I have nothing to say about the credibility of anybody; I don't know them well. But let me say a couple of things to you about your three points; first of all, that nothing has changed.
When I came on the committee, as you well remember, you heard me rant many times—and I had the support of a lot of you, as you had my support on many issues. In those days, the committee operated mainly on consensus, and I doubt if we even had a vote on committee. We had very few, if any, because the committee worked together. Most of our reports, except one or two that had one person at a time, I think, dissenting on some major issue.... Other than that, they were all unanimous.
The thing was, we had around 300 citations issued by a very small surveillance fleet, some of which were tied up in port in St. John's—again, read Hansard—because they didn't have enough fuel, as a result of their budgets being cut by the former government, to go out and do the work at sea. We have seen the number of citations reduced tremendously, particularly the major ones. However, the few that have been issued in the last couple of years since the changes in NAFO.... Somewhere, Hansard says it's like a warning ticket on the highway: the cops stop you and give you a warning ticket; the next day, you're speeding again, and they give you another warning ticket, and nobody ever does anything. These boats continued to fish, and nothing ever happened.
Now, the boats—all of them—have been taken out of the fishery zone immediately. The first one, some time ago, was kept out for between six and eight months. We're talking about those big draggers that spend up to four months at sea. If you take those boats out of the fishery and leave them out for six or eight months, you know what it does to the bottom line. Besides that, there were fines and punishments for those who ran the ship. In the last couple of incidents that happened, some of them only fished for three or four weeks out of three months. Imagine what that does to your bottom line. So to say that nothing has been done.... A tremendous amount has been done.
Did we give away anything? No, absolutely nothing: there were no deals, no extra fish, absolutely nothing.
In relation to the people who appeared, let me just ask you one question. How is it that in the committee we're against this, when everybody directly affected, representing the industry, is in favour? The people representing the deep-sea fishery, who catch this fish and depend on it, are in favour; the people who represent all the fishermen, because of the inshore effect of trans-boundary stocks.... Mr. McCurdy not only is in favour, but was part of putting the package together. And the deputy minister from Newfoundland and Labrador, who is an integral part of this.... The Newfoundland government supported it solidly, up until a month or so ago, when certain things happened. For two years, they were part of creating the plan we had and supporting it.
To say the people of Newfoundland and Labrador are against everybody...? Everybody connected with the industry is supporting it. Those who are not—the ones you've had here—haven't been connected with the fishery for years. It's something like bringing back—and I'm a Leafs fan—the last Stanley Cup-winning Toronto Maple Leafs team to play in the Olympics. That's what we're doing.
It's a whole new ball game. It's a new NAFO; it's a new league, and you're playing with the same old rules and hockey sticks and skates. It can't work.
That's why we have the confusion. But there is nobody directly connected to the fishing industry in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador who is not supporting the changes, because they see the benefit of the changes to the province, and that is why we forced the changes that are there today.