Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I welcome the three gentlemen who are here today and thank them for taking the time to appear before the committee.
My first question is for the FFAW president, Mr. Keith Sullivan.
Keith, in your talk you referred to the importance of the cod, the coming back to the cod, and the fact that the first 115,000 tonnes would be allocated to the inshore, but what about when that point comes and beyond that, when that stock finally gets to the biomass where we can open the commercial fishery?
I guess I have two questions for you. As a person who represents not just the fishers but processors throughout Newfoundland in a lot of small rural communities, when the cod fishery returns, at what level do you think the biomass should be to return to that full-fledged commercial fishery? What significance do you think it will have for rural Newfoundland when we get to that point?