We always live in hope that the moments that we experience can be turned around and things could get better.
That was a very, very difficult meeting for all participants. I think it turned out to be a very difficult meeting for the federal minister in the end.
I know that Nova Scotia's Minister Kent Smith expressed frustration because he wanted to talk about illegal and unreported catch, which was not put on the agenda. I wanted to talk about many things, including gulf redfish, gulf shrimp, northern cod and some other matters, but I really also wanted to talk about the solutions to all of the above, which was joint management. That was not allowed to be on the agenda.
It was the first time ever that a federal minister had acted on a unilateral basis to decide the agenda. We are a group of equals, the 14 of us. That's the way the structure of the Canadian Council for Fisheries and Aquaculture Ministers has always worked. We're a group of equals. That day, we were not. The federal minister had the final say.