The background of that clause, as I understand it, and I'm not an advocate or a supporter of it, is that there have been cases in other regional fisheries management organizations in which either the capacity of the coastal state was in question or there was another reason why a coastal state.... Actually, I think there are specific examples of a coastal state looking to have some assistance with enforcement inside their waters; this was in an organization other than NAFO. That's my recollection from the debate around it. When I say it would never happen, I suppose I should qualify by saying that it has happened in the past on numerous occasions, but not at all in the last number of years—I think in excess of 10 years. For all practical purposes, the practice ceased about 20 years ago. Even though any minister up to and including the current minister could at any time have said, come on in and catch whatever you want to catch in here, it hasn't happened.
It's a matter of sovereignty that we protect our 200-mile zone. It's safe to say that within that zone, for the past succession of administrations, it has been done with respect to the issue of allowing foreign vessels in. I don't see what would happen, with that provision in place, that would lead the Canadian government to go to NAFO and say we wanted to forfeit our sovereignty on a matter that is important to some of our citizens and were using NAFO as a vehicle to do so.