Thank you. That's perfect.
On page 41 you make recommendations. As long as I've been here, we've always heard this continuous discussion over quotas in lobster. As you rightfully point out, there's not much of an appetite for that, but as times change maybe attitudes will change.
I remember years ago, when I went around asking if lobster fishermen wanted to have something similar to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation in Manitoba, or the Canadian Wheat Board—did they want to develop a lobster marketing board—and almost unanimously they said, “Get lost with that idea”. But now they're talking about it, that maybe this is something they're looking at. So attitudes and times change.
On page 41, bullet 3, you talk about “the implementation of quotas with a transferable component”. As you know, Mr. d'Entremont, I don't mind individual quotas, my concern is the t in the middle, or the v in the middle—either individual vessel or individual transferable quotas. What that would do, in my own personal view—and you can correct me if I'm wrong—is that would concentrate the lobsters into fewer and fewer hands, which basically means that if you had the money.... For example, I take it a company like Clearwater, through trust agreements, can buy up all these licences, and thus they would guarantee themselves the resource coming into their hands, but they would effectively control the lobster fishery.
So if you're reducing the effort, I believe in the fact of a buy-back, but making sure it's a true buy-back, that they don't find a back-door way into the fishery. If you're going to have 40 fishermen in a harbour, then you have to make sure, if you're buying them back, that there are 30 left when you're done, and that's the effort. But under the ITQ system, it could be concentrated, and if you expand that thought process a little longer, there's nothing under the current rules that would stop Clearwater, for example, from selling their entire enterprise to a foreign entity—i.e., Iceland, the United States, or somewhere. What lobster fishermen are telling me is their greatest fear is having control or management of the lobster fishery by foreign hands. This is something they believe an ITQ would lead to. I'm just wondering if I can have your comments on that, please.
By the way, thank you very much for your report. Did the minister respond to the report thoroughly, as they do our reports? And if they did, is it possible to get a copy of that response?
Thank you.