Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's been most interesting testimony given during this committee during this important study. One thing is clear: Minister Bernadette Jordan did not create the problem that we're dealing with today. This situation has evolved on a department that was ill-equipped to deal with a court decision, as the evidence shows. At the same time, it was a department that faced years and years of cutbacks in the key enforcement area that Mr. Hutchins is speaking about.
If we're going to move forward in this area, then we have to develop a regulatory regime that is going to regulate effectively both the indigenous fishery—which will take place because the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that the first nations community have the right to access a fishery.... It is the same court and legal system that protects the value of the commercial fishing industry in Atlantic Canada. It's the same court system. If we did not have the ability to enforce the commercial fishery through the courts, then those licences would not be worth what they are and the industry would not be worth what it is to the coastal communities and the commercial industry.
There's enough blame to go around, but it did not all occur within the last few weeks. I just wanted to make that comment regarding my colleague, Minister Bernadette Jordan, who is attempting to deal with a situation that simmered for 20 years because it was unresolved and it wasn't dealt with.
My question goes to Melanie Sonnenberg, who is the one person representing the lobster fishery. It's important when we get witnesses using comparisons to other areas—such as a comparison to Maine—as a justification that you can fish when you want to, because if we allow this industry to be destroyed, as the chair can speak to in this committee, we'll have a situation like the cod fishery in Newfoundland, where nobody has anything. The only way that the first nations are going to have a moderate livelihood is if this resource continues to be managed as it has been over the past 20 years, during which it was successfully managed into a very lucrative industry.
I will ask Melanie if she would speak to the difference with Maine. Mr. Dadswell referred to it a bit. However, you cannot apply the Maine fishery to maritime Canada in the same equations, because they are very different scenarios.
Can you speak to that, Melanie?