Mr. Chair, if the members of the committee approve, what I'd like to do is answer that question by removing the politics from it and just using the facts and the evidence. I sat not in this room, but in the committee room back in 2008, when then-associate deputy minister David Bevan said this to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans:
That policy was put in place as we made significant decisions, for example, on 2J3KL cod. The first 115,000 tonnes go to the inshore and the remainder would be shared between the inshore and the offshore.
I'm demonstrating this because it has been a government policy.
The second thing I will note for the committee is that it is not unreasonable for someone to come to the conclusion that the Government of Canada's long-standing policy has been that inshore-offshore split. I'll cite the allocation policy for northern cod that the current Government of Canada articulated as recently as June 2021, in the 2021 2J3KL northern cod stewardship fishery management approach by DFO. The report reads:
The 2021 Management approach also includes a decision to allocate the first 115,000 t of Northern cod to the inshore sector and Indigenous groups. When a total allowable catch (TAC) for Northern (2J3KL) cod is established, the first 115,000 t of directed Canadian access will be allocated to the inshore sector and Indigenous groups in Newfoundland and Labrador. At a TAC level less than or equal to 115,000 t—