I'll speak to that really quickly.
I run the biggest social media group in Newfoundland with regard to the fishery, so I tend to get a lot of information before everyone else gets it. As we speak now, they're having the cod technical briefings back home in Newfoundland.
I'm not sure how this all started. Why was DFO downloading the responsibilities of fishery management onto a union, or whatever? It's totally wrong. We have scientists and everything else there in place to develop that stuff.
The GIDC is a new group; they formed a union. I think there's someone from the provincial government sitting on it. In 2016, the GIDC processors and the WWF formulated this plan, a cod-harvesting plan, that went against the science that the provincial government had a charter to do.
In 2016 they predicted the stock was going to increase by 23%, I think it was, and it only increased by 7%. So, what did the GIDC do then? They increased the harvest capacity for 2017, with a predicted growth of 30%. I found out on Monday, and I guess everyone will find out on Friday, that the stock apparently now has declined overall by 14%.
It went directly against what the recommendations were from the scientists who conducted the initial study that found an increase in the biomass. It's not good enough. This is our livelihood, and we have a group of.... I don't know who they are. What gives them the right to decide...who's a former RDG... and all this stuff? They went against the science and they gambled and they lost.