To the department officials here, following what I think was some fairly intense political pressure, the government relented and exempted fishing fuel from the proposed—or the now-implemented—carbon tax for the approximately 46,000 fishers in Canada. However, there are all kinds of incidental costs that fishers will bear as a result of the carbon tax. One only has to look at the cost of shipping lobster. I'm looking at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans website right now. It says, “About two-thirds of Canada's 50 million lb lobster catch is shipped alive to distant markets. This involves coastal storage in crates, cars, tanks and tidal pounds for a few days or up to several months, shipment for 1-5 days”.
All of these things are going to be costs that will be borne by the fishing industry. Any equipment that's brought to the wharf and anything that's taken away from the wharf is going to have increased costs because all of it consumes energy.
Has the department done a study—notwithstanding the carbon tax exemption on the fuel for the boat alone—on what the cost of the carbon tax will actually be to the fishing industry?