With the business I'm involved in, marketing is a very important portion of what we do. We basically market fishing licences and fishing vessels, now to the point of basically all products, on behalf of our clients, primarily fishermen.
The first thing we have to do is get out there—we don't see as much marketing process with respect to snow crab, which I think is more an Atlantic Canadian way—and through the development of the Atlantic Canadian crab council, probably, work together in each province, competing with one another, with respect to the markets that we have available to us.
What had transpired through that area 19 model that we were involved in with the marketing program there last year was that we started out with a price offer a few days before the fishery started. The price would be dropping as the season continued over the next few weeks. But through our efforts, we managed to find a buyer that was willing to pay the price—a suitable buyer, mind you, basically somebody who qualified—and we managed to get the price up 20¢ more than what was offered at the wharf. So the fishery went ahead, the price never dropped, and the fishermen got to sell their crab in the water.
Through the marketing efforts, we went around through Atlantic Canada and this was the product that was being sold. Area 19 crab is a large crab. It is of a colour...basically you don't have any pencil lines underneath. It's a very high-quality crab. We managed to get the best price available through the marketing efforts that were done by us, with the association. Again this year, the area 19 crab fishery is only a short distance away and we'll be doing the same thing.
As another example, it's no different from what we do on a daily basis with fishing vessels. We've been marketing fishing vessels throughout the world, but by the same token, it doesn't necessarily mean that we're selling to the same people all the time. We're continuously looking for new markets, and I think it's where we need to go with respect to the crab fishery. We need to work together.
If there's anything that this standing committee can do here, it's to basically bring together everybody within Atlantic Canada, all the crab fishermen in Atlantic Canada. Be it in Quebec or in the Maritimes, we have snow crab. Yes, there are some crab that are a smaller size than others. Yes, there are some crab that probably have a different appearance than others, but let's try to get the best we can in the marketplace we're trying to sell into. Let's stop undercutting each other, to the point where the government involvement here could be something that we could work towards, helping these companies obtain the best price for it. Why shouldn't we be selling the pristine crab that we have that comes out of the water through Atlantic Canada? Why do we have to undercut ourselves with the product that we have? It's quality product.
I'm very doubtful, Phil, that you're dumping much of the product that's coming to your wharf. I'm assuming that you're selling everything you receive, and I'm assuming that you're receiving quality product.
So what we need to do in a marketing strategy is to get out there, and through this process, everybody work together to get the best we possibly can, rather than one undercutting the other and then people like Lyndon Small and the other fishermen around the table being the ones who are getting less from the industry.
These are the primary people. Without the harvesters, we have nothing. The harvesters are getting less, from what I can see, as people who are presenting quality product to the marketplace. Yet all we're doing is selling; we're not marketing. We're just going in and dumping our crab on the market, and somebody else is holding it and receiving the best price, when the market can pay the best price, which we're not doing.
I'll just end there.