Thank you, Mr. Chair.
To Mr. Kelloway's point, I'll make no bones about it. I wrote to the minister several times in support of the livelihoods of harvesters in Newfoundland and Labrador and to support a much bigger quota increase than what they got, but not to change the fishery from a stewardship fishery to a commercial fishery.
As you know, it was the other side of the House, the Liberals, who lobbied to have that fishery reopened as a commercial fishery, because it would be a political win. I wasn't looking for a win in politics in terms of what would be happening with the northern cod fishery. I was looking for a win for our harvesters, our plant workers and our coastal communities that depend on it so much.
To go back to Mr. Burns, to that statement about how the minister was seeking “year-round employment” in the fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador by this mere increase of 3,000 tonnes or 5,000 tonnes, basically I guess we could say that the 3KL portion was caught in about a dozen fishing days. They fished about a dozen days altogether because they only fished for about two days a week.
Then, for a vessel like the Calvert, with 6% that is shared by Icewater, that 6% can be fished in less than a couple of weeks. You're talking about, altogether, less than 30 days of harvesting by a fraction of the people involved in the industry in Newfoundland and Labrador. How does that add up to year-round employment?