Thank you, Mr. Chair.
First of all, it's timely that we're looking at the study with our friends to the east, where hurricane Fiona recently hit, and I want to express my thoughts as somebody who was born and raised in Newfoundland and is now a proud west coaster. I am sending my thoughts out to everybody on the east coast.
With regard to the topic at hand, I want to thank the witnesses for being here today and sharing with us updates around this important topic.
I'm looking at a chart in front of me. In it, there are some numbers laid out around the mandatory reporting of lost gear to the DFO. That reporting has been implemented in all areas since 2020. I'm hoping you could help me understand some of the pieces here. I'm looking at, for example, Newfoundland and Labrador, where it says that the number of lost gear reports filed is 33. The number of gear units reported lost is 263, and the number of gear units retrieved is 181.
I'm wondering if you can highlight the process that a fisher or whoever would take to file a report, the process of reporting lost gear, and the barriers in retrieving that gear because, as you can see, the numbers don't align.