Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I appreciate Mr. Johns' bringing this to the attention of the committee, as we all know of the issue with the spot prawns. It continues with unexpected announcements, decisions or changes in interpretation that are impacting harvesters right across the country.
We see it as an ongoing problem with the minister's and the department's not consulting with the stakeholders or the industry. I think the spot prawn was the first one that really raised it to highlight it to MPs offices. We were all flooded by emails about that.
I don't know whether we can cover this in just two meetings, and I want to bring to the attention of the committee that we have been postponing motions for study that were on the docket long before this, and which have a much broader scope.
It's fine that it be on notice of motion to the committee, but to further postpone our study into the Pacific salmon, the illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries, and the pinniped issue on both coasts.... I think all of those have a much bigger impact on our overall fisheries in the country.
We keep getting sidelined into other—I don't know whether you call them knee-jerk or reactionary—studies in this committee, rather than focusing on what the committee identified early on in the first session of this Parliament and now in the second session, as we got back under way after the proroguement. We had priorities set out, and I don't think it behooves the committee to continuously change priorities because of what happens to be the issue of the day, because these issues of the day continue to pop up under this current regime.