Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good day, gentlemen.
Apparently, some topics were discussed in Moncton and questions were put to you. Unfortunately, one of the problems with small committees is that not everyone can attend the meetings. I'm likely to ask you questions that you have already fielded, but I would still like to hear your answers.
You stated that the fishery operates in cycles. You showed us a graph of landings since 2001. However, most likely you had to go as far back as 1990 or 1992 to establish the crab fishing cycle, irrespective of the zone involved.
I'm going to ask you a series of questions and if you don't have enough time to answer them right now, I would appreciate your sending us a short, written response.
I'm curious about the impact of certain factors, percentage-wise. For example, what is the impact of the number of fishing licences and quotas allotted per licence? Does the natural cycle of the crab factor into the equation? I'd like to know which of these factors impacts the crab population and to what extent, percentage-wise.
I'm also wondering if, based on these cycles, we could establish a median line. We're told that the minister is the one who issues licences and allocates quotas, which is quite normal. Could a median line not be used to agree on a certain number of licences per zone and, if we see that crab stocks increase, whether marginally or significantly, could we not then agree on the quotas per licence, while maintaining the same number of licences? Would that be feasible?
I believe Mr. Bevan mentioned that conditions in the gulf were different this year from those in previous years. This seriously exacerbates the fishers' problem. In 1992, for example, in the northern part of the gulf, 500 licenses were issued. In 2009, 750 licences were issued. This is not a significant difference. However, in Newfoundland and Labrador, the number of licences issued increased from 750 in 1992 to 3,400 in 2009. Were we not inviting problems by allowing such discrepancies between the number of fishers, the number of boats and the quotas allotted? I'd like to hear your views on this subject.