I also want to welcome our new Conservative colleagues. It is always nice to have some new blood in a committee like ours. For Rodger, this is a return. You could say he has come back to the future. I am very glad to be working with Rodger once again. I have always enjoyed it very much, and we have always worked hard together. I also want to welcome Joyce. We will get to know one another with time.
As for me, I will say that our priority is to complete the famous snow crab report. Indeed, it is already October, and the crisis happened back in the spring. So we will need to at least make some recommendations this fall, as the budget is coming soon. There is nothing to suggest there will be a miraculous recovery in the snow crab fishery as was the case for the Pacific salmon fishery. Last year, quotas were cut by 63%, and I do not get the sense that snow crab will miraculously reappear next year. So the problem remains unsolved, and that is why I think we need to make it a priority.
Furthermore, I am still waiting for the famous new fisheries legislation. We have been waiting for a while now. It has been a long time coming; the issue has been outstanding not just from this Parliament, but the previous one as well. So we are in a situation where the fisheries sector, in particular, is undergoing changes, in Quebec and similarly in the rest of Canada. It is no secret that the current legislation is more than outdated. It is verging on ridiculous: we have legislation that has not been amended for a hundred years, or thereabouts. So now, we go from one crisis to another, and I have said that repeatedly. If it is not the shrimp, lobster or groundfish, namely cod, it is the snow crab.
All of these events should sound alarm bells. We need legislation that does more to address these situations, these changes, and all the resulting issues and challenges.
So we will have some very important discussions over the next few weeks. We will continue to work with Yvon as constructively as possible to ensure that we make progress.
Thank you very much.