We could argue this until the cows come home.
We were bracing ourselves for 40%, and the industry was getting ready, the harvesting sector, the processing. They felt that 40% was bad enough, yet they were finding some glimmers of light, some hope to be able to get through it. Nobody knew that 63% was coming. Not one person in the industry, absolutely no one, knew that 63% was going to hit us broadside like that.
As I said, I found out about it the day of, a couple of hours before the House went in at one o'clock. At 11:35 a.m. I got a courtesy call from the Minister of Fisheries, who, by the way, very nicely called my fisheries critic that morning to let him know. I thought, “Well, that was great collaboration.” As I said to Raynald only a few minutes ago, I take people at face value.
I respect the decisions that are made, but at the same time we have to respect each other and know what's coming our way. There was an opportunity and there were all kinds of off ramps to let us know what was going to happen. If you ask anyone from the crab sector, if you ask any fisherman, if you ask any plant worker, if you ask any operator of a fish plant what was coming, they will tell you the same thing: they didn't know. They knew they were bracing themselves for an impact, but they had absolutely no idea. That's like my mother putting on Christmas supper for 10 people and having 25 people show up.
We have to work together, and it has been the spirit that I've put across for the past four years, with all ministers, that we have to have a spirit of cooperation, where we work together, because no matter what decisions you make, they're going to impact coastal communities. We need to work together as to what the impact is going to be in those coastal communities.
Moving forward here, we could talk about this and talk about the mistakes, but let's take this and learn from it. How do we move forward on this? With some of the work we've been doing in the provinces, how do we rationalize the industry? We've worked hand in hand with the processors, the marketers, the harvesters. How do we brace ourselves for the older population? How do we modernize the plants to prepare for the future?
A lot of the plants have picked up that challenge because they're realizing that their workforce is aging, things are changing, plant workers have completely changed, and they've had to modernize. Come into Connors Bros. next month, as an example. If you want to see a state-of-the-art facility...that's a sardine plant that's been around for over 100 years, and they've just invested, give or take, $18 million in that plant to modernize it and to prepare themselves for total utilization of the species.
One of the things we've been talking about for the past couple of years is how we utilize from the mouth of the fish to the tail. How do we utilize every piece of that fish? Look and see what Connors is doing. They've changed their process; they're mechanizing. They've mechanized to the point of getting better value from the product. They're utilizing the total species. It's tremendous work they're doing.
Did that beeper go again?