Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to thank all of you gentlemen for coming out and sharing your testimony with the committee today.
I'm a new member of Parliament. I'm from the west coast. I was just elected in November, so I'm new to this process, but I'm very passionate about the west coast fishery, and certainly I'm very interested in learning about the east coast fishery.
When I heard the motion to look at the snow crab industry and for our committee to travel to the east and meet with you to hear your perspectives, I was very supportive and wanted to do that. In fact, I was a bit late in the process in trying to adjust our travel plans to include Shippagan as one of the places to visit. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to get in there in time to do that adjustment. At least we are here. We're hearing what you have to say, and I'm certainly hearing some interesting comments, given what we heard earlier from the department.
I want to pick up on the science issue, and I'll come back to that, but I want to go to Mr. Basque for a second.
We heard earlier from the department that there was in fact consultation with first nations on arriving at the decision it came to, and I'm struggling with that. Mr. Basque, could you just comment or clarify whether you were consulted on the decision that was arrived at?