Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the department for being here today. This is an important act and it deserves great scrutiny.
I was interested to hear the question from the member from Newfoundland, Mr. Rogers. I think he was alluding to something that he's probably a little bit apprehensive to bring out directly because he's afraid of suffering the fate of our former chair here, but recently there were some decisions made with the reallocation of the surf clam quota. You spoke a great deal about transparency in decisions, that they should be open, that there should be consultation.
It appears that decision, the reallocation or award of that allocation, was made to a non-existent corporation at the time. They had no indigenous partners at the time and they had no boat at the time, apparently not meeting any of the criteria that were set out by the department to be able to qualify for that reallocation.
Do you consider that transparent? Can you be more transparent about why that decision was made?