Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the panel for appearing today.
I had another question, but I'll comment on the striped bass. Being from Miramichi everything happens four hours before the west coast, so I'm going to give you an update on that. The striped bass tournament was a great success. Over 2,000 people came. It's great for the economy.
Having said that, I was at a rally there with probably a couple of hundred people, and I addressed them on the striped bass issue. The department has expanded the fisheries and the catch you're able to take this year. Is it enough? I don't know. A lot of people will debate that it's not enough. However, their concern, and that was part of my other question, is more the consulting process that takes place. There are means of consulting online and they also meet with different groups. But the people on the river who have been there for a long time feel they are not always part of the process. Again, I can defend science any day, but there are questions on how they came up with that number. I think that's one area where I believe we could do a little better.
I went fishing myself and I caught my limit of striped bass and I released some. It's a great thing, but again, we also want to protect the salmon on the river.
If I may move to another subject, it is small craft harbours. For the last 10 years, some harbours in my area have been really neglected, even in the management aspect. I have one right now in Pointe-Sapin where the fall lobster fishery is threatened because the harbour hasn't been dredged or maintained over the years. We're now facing a shortage of time to be able to do that, and some 40 lobster fishermen may.... I don't know where they would dock their boat. It's a long way to the next one. Right now, there's a stench in the community because of the algae that's built up.
We were talking about the resource allocation. Are we allocating more resources to be on top of that? It's very important. This is a very lucrative fishery for that small community, and we're facing a time crunch on that one particularly, so maybe I could ask you to comment on that.