Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to all of the witnesses for being here today on this important subject.
I'm from the New Brunswick part of the country. My riding is along the eastern side of the province, in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Northumberland Strait.
Of course, the topic of whales has been very much talked about in the last couple of years. On that subject, 2017 was very disastrous for the whale population. Our goal, and I guess the goal of everybody, should be to protect that species and other species that are at risk. We saw over 15 whales perish during that summer.
On October 25, 2017, we heard a comment from Kristen Monsell, from the Center for Biological Diversity in the United States, who said that a provision of the U.S. Fishermen's Protection Act allows the White House to ban imports of fish or seafood from a country if that catch is affecting conservation efforts of an endangered species.
As we know, three-quarters of the snow crabs caught in New Brunswick and on the east coast are destined for U.S. markets. With that in mind, our minister decided to take measures. These were not half measures; there really had to be zero tolerance for any more deaths of whales.
Would you say that these measures were appropriate, or overreaching?
I would like comments from Ms. Brown.
Mr. Michaud, feel free to comment as well on the measures that the minister took in 2018.