Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you for your presentation, Ms. Bouffard.
I don't really know where to start. I will begin with a comment.
It has nothing to do with you, but when I learned about eco-certification...I imagine we have to be very cautious about this. I realized this when I looked at one of the tables in Canada's Seafood Guide. I am going to say frankly that people where I live were really not happy to see that document. I would not say that its direction was predetermined, but still there is a risk of going off the track. The table really goes off the track when it comes to Atlantic products. Taking that route and assigning a particular organization responsibility for deciding which products should be banned or avoided and which ones are wonderful is fraught with danger. You referred earlier to trawling and other factors. It would be easy to go off the track.
This year's budget provides that starting tomorrow, an agency is going to study eco-certification. Has the Department planned for anything other than creating this agency? Creating a national agency and locating it, I don't know, probably in Halifax, is worth considering. I have nothing against the idea. It might even be located in Quebec City. But that can't be the end of it.
I'm not saying you are necessarily going to reassure me, but I would like to understand what brought us to where we are today. A document like that one is very damaging to the industry. It is dangerous. It also sounds as if it has been endorsed.
I would like you to comment on that particular aspect.