I think, if you put it into the act that the minister “shall” take into consideration harvester knowledge, and you make fishermen partners in the scientific process, you can come together with science and agree on what is there.
I will say that inshore harvesters are like the canary in the coal mine. If you go back to the 1980s, the inshore harvesters in Newfoundland were the first ones to say that there was something wrong in this fishery. It was the inshore harvesters who said that.
I think you could put fishermen right in the mix of science and make them partners, just as we've done in the lobster industry. If you look at the lobster science in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and at what we've done at MFU with Homarus, and what PEIFA and other groups have done, then it's easier to understand and believe what it all says. When you're shut out and you're not able to give input, and what you're seeing with your eyes doesn't correlate, then it's hard to accept. You get this disconnect between science and harvesters.