I'll say it in the shortest way possible: No. Consultations are not what they used to be. I know that we're all getting over the challenges COVID gave us because of the in-person problems, but I think in the future we have to get back to the more regional meetings. You don't have to be doing them in every community, but pick different parts in the provincial regime.
Years ago I chaired the fisheries resource conservation council, which was actually the advisory group to the minister. If we had a special task to do, we'd go out and do it. Then we'd provide a report. That's not there anymore, so that avenue is gone.
Right now the knowledge to be able to do the proper consultations is actually in the regional DFO offices. A lot of those guys, the people in the DFO offices.... Let's say it's the Newfoundland region. I'll speak to that one. They actually come from fishing-related backgrounds, or some of their people are in the fishery, or they've been around the marine institute and on the vessels and the research trawlers over time. They know what the ocean environment is like. They have personal relationships with a lot of the fishing industry. That has been lost over the last few years. I think we have to get back to that and get the local knowledge there.
To me, the success of our fishing industry is all about co-operative management, right from the DFO to the industry to those who depend on the industry. That was what was happening over time. Even with the science programs, we always had our meetings over the year. We looked at evaluating the science programs. We looked at what recruitment was like and what harvest levels should be. It wasn't only us; the banks were also interested in that, very much so. They depended on a lot of those reports to look at how their lending institutions were going to divvy out money to the fishing industry. I think we really have to get back to the grassroots business for managing the fishery and for advice.