I have just one more paragraph and then I'll get to the bitter end for you. I'm sorry about this.
You know that Minister Shea decided to change the idea. I'll go through it as quickly as I can. Minister Shea decided in 2009 to fix the equity licences as established following the panel report in 2005. She just locked in the way they made the decision and didn't change it.
We were consulted in what we understood was a major review of that decision this winter, and we were informed upon the review that the May 2009 decision was to remain. She made the decision in 2009, then went through a big review, and then decided to implement it. Of course, now you folks are here.
Unfortunately, the success that is the eastern Nova Scotia snow crab fishery is tainted by a few who've become addicted to free handouts and have learned that bad behaviour and skewed truth reap rewards: money for nothing and your crab for free. It's sad that the politics of the numbers can yet again rise up to attempt to destroy yet another fish resource. Cod alone should have provided the lessons that we needed. The resource is shared among fishermen outside the fishery who own the rights to the resource, receive royalty rights for this ownership, and the gift isn't big enough.
Sadder still is the failure to respect the conservational, financial, and historic investments by the traditional fleet that have provided the basis for this resource success. Access of 100% is down to 30% access and possibly less. Saddest of all is the bait-and-switch treatment of the snow crab access values negotiated in good faith by aboriginal people under the rights deemed by the Supreme Court of Canada. They provide that under the negotiations, this is going to be the level that you have; then they take away from that under the temporary measure in 2004, and then they take away again to provide more access to non-aboriginal...well, new corporate entity fishermen.
The traditional and aboriginal fleets have cooperatively worked towards the continued best management practice of this fishery regardless of financial hardship, as noted by a further cut in quota of 17% in 2005 right after the panel report, followed by a 29% cut in 2006, which came on top of the lowest shore price that we'd seen in a decade. We took those cuts specifically because we had to, because that's what the science was saying. The net result is that we've actually seen a rebounding effect that's gone beyond.
We are the stewards of the resource envisioned by the UNFAO, and while we're not here asking for more than can be justified, we're asking for no less. We support Minister Shea's decision in 2009, and the wisdom on behalf of the Government of Canada and the fishery that she used in making it.
We urge this committee to support the minister's decision on the allocation distributions to ensure that there's a viable snow crab fishery for generations to come.