Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the witnesses for being here today.
I represent LFAs 33 and 34 in Nova Scotia. It's interesting, I think, that you've mentioned that they've capped length—maximum vessel restriction—to 45 feet, but as you're probably aware, they're making the boats wider now. Good on them, you know: it's solving their problem of making sure the gear gets out in one trip as opposed to two. They're not dealing with length. They're dealing with width. Among the challenges we face with this now is that where we used to be able to berth three vessels at a wharf, we can now berth only two. As you know, if someone has a berth, they have a berth; it's not a matter of the width or the length. They have the berth. That's causing some backup and some problems in our small craft harbours.
Can anybody comment on that, on the width as opposed to the length? We have vessels now that look like boxes. They're square so that they can do their job. If they don't want to increase the length but they can still get their gear out in a different way, is this possibly another solution? If we're stuck on length, why isn't width an issue as well?