Do they have a mandate? I'll tell you what I've been told, and then we can decide whether or not they have the mandate.
When we developed the community fishing plans that I talked about—Potlotek, Pictou Landing and Annapolis Valley—we wanted to work with DFO to try to ensure that they were plans that both of us could live with. We put forward those plans to DFO for comment and asked them to sit down with us to discuss whether or not these were workable. When we didn't get any response, we went through the levels of consultation to say, okay, well let's consult as we normally would consult when it comes to these things, and we didn't get any response.
Based on the things that have been happening now, we once again.... I was at a meeting with some chiefs and DFO officials where the chiefs said, “All we're looking for is to just tell us what parts of our plan you disagree with, and tell us what parts of our plan that we can modify or work with so that you feel they are acceptable.” What we were told was, “We have no mandate to discuss anything within these plans with you, or any approach other than looking for a general type of licence that we can use to cover this over.”
It really frustrated the chiefs, in the sense that, really, what was the point of the conversation? They couldn't even get a “yes” or a “no” or “here are our problems” from the DFO officials.