Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bevan, for coming back again to our committee and providing us with good information.
I'll direct my first questions to Monsieur Lanteigne and Monsieur Moriyasu, just in terms of the science. Both of you gentlemen have been quoted in the media as saying there has been a problem in the southern gulf crabbing area 12 for awhile. Now the current cuts are a culmination of that. In fact, your comments in the media are very consistent with what the Department of Fisheries and Oceans' Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat's own science advisory reports for 2007, 2008, and 2009 have been saying about the southern gulf crab. In 2007, the report said the population was in a phase of decline. The report in 2008 said that recruitment to the fishery declined by 39%. In 2009, the report concluded that recruitment to the fishery declined by a further 13%.
It seems to me that there is clear evidence that science has been doing its job. It's been providing advice to the department and to the minister that stocks have been fragile, and have not been fragile since last season but have been fragile for awhile. Could you comment to the committee about some of the scientific findings, not just from this past year but from the last several years?