Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'll try to calm down a bit first.
Mr. Hardie raised an important point when he said that it's too late for the Quebec capelin weir fishers anyway. I said that at the outset. I even said it when I asked for this emergency meeting, because every day counts.
The idea is to harvest a limited quantity of capelin each day and sell them fresh. The rest are processed as they go.
Each day represents income that will not come back later. That's why every day counts. Those two fishers are going through some tough financial times right now. Last year, they lost half their fishing income because of the capelin opening date constraint.
What I'm hearing is that Quebec's capelin weir fishers are the only ones held to an opening date, while all other fishers help themselves based on the arrival and availability of the resource. In addition, I'm being told that it's impossible to grant them special permission to fish starting tomorrow.
On what basis are you preventing this fishery? More importantly, how are you going to live with the idea that neither of these two fishers may be around anymore next year?
How can you live with that?