It's a very good but a very complex question.
Mr. Chair, before I go on, I may have misunderstood the question from MP Barron in terms of the timeline. I don't think it changes my answer very much, other than the fact that, if you were talking about the incident that occurred in the early 2000s, the context is not a lot different from the incident that MP Perkins referred to. If you were talking about the earlier one, I think I've answered it correctly. If not, the context still applies.
In terms of the use of ships, if any of the DFO science people were here, I would think they would tell you that it's absolutely imperative that the survey be conducted by the same type of ship with the same type of trawl and, for the most part, at the same time of year if they are to get results that are valid for their science surveys. Having said that, a trawl survey is only one piece of information that can be used. Second, given the problems of the past decade and more—it's not just last year—with the unpredictability of getting the survey done, we should be looking to other models.
One that I'll offer is the snow crab survey in the Gulf of St. Lawrence that's done with the participation of fish harvesters. It's done with an industry vessel and, to the best of my knowledge—even though I'm not totally current on that given my departure from DFO—that survey gets delivered; otherwise, the contractor doesn't get paid for their work.
I think, given the unpredictability, DFO science and industry need to work together to look at better models for delivery.