Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to our witnesses for appearing before us and providing us with some sound and significant advice and an overview of the industry as it affects not only yourselves but the members of your associations and organizations.
Perhaps I could ask Mr. Haché and Mr. Lanteigne if they can provide us.... The cuts have been extremely difficult, and we recognize that. It has been a problem not only for the harvesters but for the processors and everybody in the industry. Could you provide some insight to the committee? When the new entrants came into the fishery, of course--let's call a spade a shovel here--it caused certain concerns among your organizations. Did you ever have an understanding, a feeling, either explicitly or implicitly, that if and when stocks declined, the decline would be shared equally by everyone, or would it be done on a process of the relatively new entrants being removed from the fishery first? What has been your understanding for the last number of years? As the stock was increasing, did you have an appreciation or understanding of what the method would be in times of decline?