I have a little background about the committee of advisers, too, and this goes back, actually, to a few of the points Mr. Hayes brought up about partnerships. Back in the days of the formation of the fishery commission, it was very much envisioned that this commission would be a focal point for discussion, not just among the states and the province but also among the stakeholders of the region, because we don't have an illustrious history, up until the 1950s, of actually working together, not just across political jurisdictions but with the various interests in the basin.
On the U.S. side, it's right in the law. In the fisheries act of 1956, which created the fishery commission, it is said that we shall support a U.S. committee of advisers that has to be heard on issues of importance, and they represent the sport fishery, the commercial fishery, the state agencies, and the public at large.
On the Canadian side, it's not written into law, but the fishery commission formed—informally—a committee of advisers in the 1980s. It was a committee of two: sport fishing and recreational fishing. In the late 1990s, it formalized the committee and expanded it to include, not just sport and recreational fishing but academia, the environment, the public at large, and aboriginal communities.
So we have formal mechanisms now to get that input, and it's important to us because it's not just a way for the fishery commission to receive the input from the advisers, but it also sometimes gives us sober second thought on issues of importance. We have a sounding board, and we get an understanding of where they're coming from.
In this particular case with the resolution, we actually would not have had a good idea of the level of consultation that was occurring on this had the advisers not come to us and said, “You know what? This Fisheries Act is pretty important. We would like to have some time to study it, but also some input into what exactly is being proposed”. That's what they were communicating to us.