Thank you. I'll be brief because I don't have much choice.
Unlike fisheries with centuries of history, as many as our fisheries have, northern shrimp is a very recent fishery. Mr. Genge from the northern peninsula, who's behind us here, who came from Newfoundland with me because he's an owner-operator in this fishery and has a lot at stake here, started fishing in 1970, which is before any of the offshore boats. You want to know who was the first in? He was, along with his colleagues in the gulf, in smaller than 65-foot boats.
I'm going to try to correct as best I can, in a very limited timeframe, some of the.... I've read some of the transcripts, and I can understand why people on the committee would likely be confused about some of the facts, because of the way some of the evidence was presented.
There's an interesting document—it's hard to find, but I found it eventually—that was done by the economics branch of DFO in 1980. It talks about.... I was looking for the basis on which the offshore boats claim this great long history, when really they only started in 1978. What this report that was done for the economics branch of DFO made clear was that when those boats started, there was a requirement that at least 50% of their landings be processed in shore-based plants, and that rule subsequently changed.
There were existing shrimp fleets in the gulf, but they weren't licensed in the northern shrimp fishery. Why was that the case? It was the case because at that time the shrimp were too far north for boats that didn't have freezing technology aboard to pursue them. It was way down in the north.
I have some tables here that I'd hoped to go through with the committee, but I'm told by the clerk that because they're not translated, I'm not allowed to circulate them, which is unfortunate, because it would have helped to illustrate things. But anyway, there's nothing I can do about that, I guess. Rules are rules, except—