Thank you, Mr. Chisholm.
Yes, I have been involved with DFO from the conception of the recreational tuna fishery. It was a brainchild of Mr. Chris Jones, many years back. He came to me as an active saltwater fisherman with the offer that he would like to marry up the commercial with the recreational guys and possibly have a tuna tournament that would involve both sectors.
Let's not kid ourselves: commercial fishermen had the gear and the boats; they were the guys doing it. To this point, the recreational fishery wasn't really able to touch it, unless they were aboard a boat with a commercial person or down in the U.S., because in the U.S. you can buy a personal licence for bluefin.
Saying that, back in '93 we put together a consortium of people, as I said, and we solicited the Canadian government as well as DFO to give us 10 tags from the existing quota—not added to the quota, but from the Canadian quota. Then I went to ALPAC meetings and we discussed it at length for about a year and a half, and it was agreed by the commercial parties to give the recreational people 10 tags from their quota. This was only on the basis that we create a tournament and that all proceeds go to a charitable organization.
They were all certainly supporting the IWK, because we are from the maritime region. The idea in supporting the IWK Health Centre is that it is a maritime hospital, not just a Halifax hospital, and we all know it, as some of our families—or friends, certainly—had people there.
That's based upon those 10 tags, but it's such a small flash in the pan. We have the tournament, which takes place over three days. Sometimes the fish are caught and sometimes they're not. It depends on the time of year, the weather—there are all kinds of variables. We have just a small window that our licence is open for. What we catch we can retain, and the money goes to the children's hospital. The other existing fish that are not caught go back into the Canadian quota.
In the last two years, the fisheries have allowed the tournament to continue the following week to try to catch all 10 fish, because we are trying to raise money at the same time for the children's hospital. Since we were given 10 fish, we try to catch the 10 fish, but it's fishing, not catching, and bluefin, as you well know.... They don't call it the “elusive bluefin” for no reason.
But I want to go beyond that. It is such a valuable entity, such a world-class fish—and that's just one species that we have off Nova Scotia. We are touching nothing of what we have here. Unfortunately, Nova Scotia is probably the prime place for these species, because we are inside the Gulf Stream. This is probably not a Prince Edward Island thing or a New Brunswick thing; it's more going to be along Nova Scotia, because it is the province that has the access to the waters that these fish live in.
It's not just the tuna: I'm promoting that we look at some of the other species that are today not even touched, not even talked about; yet they're all out there and are all being caught and let go, or eaten, or whatever, because there are really no regulations on those.
The money that could be created for the provinces, the hotels, the restaurants—you know how it works—is phenomenal, when it comes to large pelagics. There are billionaires and millionaires who set their sights on these their whole lives and go all over the world. They will come here as well. They are coming here for the tuna tournament, and if we had other species, the company would come here all summer long, not just for this particular week. That's what's been in my mind for many years. I think this is something that we can do together.