Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to everybody who's joined us today.
Mr. Stehfest, I'm going to probably dwell mostly with you in this round of questioning, because your organization and its namesake, along with a lot of celebrity activists, have definitely had a major influence on general public opinion. I would point out your use in your comments of the word “cull”. This is something we very specifically tried not to reference. In fact, we've been talking about “harvest” where there is a use for the animals once they are harvested.
I want to present some empirical evidence and to get your comment on it. Norway found a way to make their pinnipeds go away. They're very coy about how that happened, but we have heard that their cod stocks have been rebuilding quite nicely.
In Atlantic Canada, pinniped populations continue to grow to the highest levels ever seen, according to some we've heard from. Our cod stocks, after all these years—30 or 40 years—still haven't gotten to the point where we could say they're stable. Can you comment on that empirical evidence and what it says to you?