I don't think anyone sitting at this table who's followed fisheries management would consider minutia as being immaterial to the actions of foreign flag contracting parties when it comes to certain practices in the regulatory area, especially outside of 200 miles.
Notwithstanding all of that, we have an agreement here that there is an objection procedure that does indeed allow contracting parties and other flag states to actually fish unilaterally, with their own plans. I've come to the conclusion, as a result, that the statement of the government that they have now enacted custodial management is a false statement.
Notwithstanding all of that, there's nothing in this NAFO convention, the current convention, that allows any NAFO intrusion into Canadian waters. Yet it is proposed in the new NAFO convention to allow international management inside of 200 miles--NAFO control of the area inside Canada's exclusive economic zone. Agreed, this has to occur with the consent of the coastal state. NAFO could gain control of the entire regulatory area right up into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
Why would Canadian negotiators allow such provisions to be included without a reasonable quid pro quo of Canada being able to assume full management authority of the area outside of the Canadian exclusive economic zone--in other words, into the current NAFO-regulated area outside of Canadian jurisdiction?
This provision is conspicuously absent from the draft convention. Is that because it was a European rapporteur who was holding the pen to the draft convention? Because it certainly wasn't a Canadian. It just seems to me that for Canada to agree to that particular provision, however ridiculous it is, for Canada not to insist that this same provision be put in place for the coastal state to actually have an opportunity to gain control of the regulatory area outside of the exclusive economic zone is a huge failure on the part of the Canadian negotiators.