Mr. Chair, we had the harvesters here about a month or so ago, and I asked the elver harvesters themselves whether it would it be possible to salvage some kind of a season around mid-April or even towards the end of April, because oftentimes the elver fishery continues up towards the end of June.
Mr. Kelloway said earlier that a considerable number of arrests have been made. With such success in arresting poachers on those rivers, maybe it's a good time to evaluate the success of the enforcement that's happened so far and to give the fishery a shot. Those 1,100 jobs could be partially saved this year.
There's another thing. When you pull seafood out of a market, someone else comes in with their seafood and takes your market and you may not get it back. This is very serious, so if there's any way to have a partial season going forward to make a decision quickly....
I've heard a lot of positive things coming out of the minister's office, quite optimistic about the number of arrests that were made, so I'm thinking they must have a lot of the poaching cleaned up based on what we're hearing. Why not give these harvesters a chance to go and make some kind of a living?