In the short term, the short answer to that is no, because this fishery has gone through cycles. A few years ago, in 2005, it was at a peak, and in 2004 it was very lucrative. We had earnings that were quite considerable, with gross earnings in the $800,000 range per enterprise for some of the traditional people.
Yes, it's tough this year, and earnings are down a couple of hundred thousand dollars, but to provide assistance now is not a priority. Our priority is to rebuild the stock and to get the earnings back up as best we can, because of the world market situation, back up to where they were on the average for the last cycle.
The average earnings in this fishery are fairly good over the course of a cycle. So what the government did in 2003 was to say, okay, the allocations are fixed and we're not changing them; you guys manage the up cycle and manage the down cycle.
So we're in the down cycle and people are having a difficult time, particularly workers in plants, etc., but we've indicated to the fleets that they can have the flexibility to reduce their costs at this time in the down cycle. But there will be an up cycle, we expect, starting in 2012. We don't think taxpayers should take care of subsidizing the fishery over the low part of the cycle when there are going to be good profits ahead and they have had good profits in the past.