Thank you, Madam Chair.
Harvesters in Atlantic Canada have practised extreme conservation when it comes to fisheries for pelagics, otherwise known as forage fish by foreign-funded activists who lobby DFO and the minister extremely hard to keep these fisheries at such a low level, or even closed, as is the case with mackerel.
We look at herring, and we had openings not long ago in Conception Bay, Trinity Bay and Bonavista Bay. If you look at the areas that are fished in that herring fishery, you're looking at possibly 5% of the waters that are fished. That quota is getting taken in anywhere from 12 to 24 hours.
Would that indicate to you somehow, possibly, that the stock is so healthy and the quota is being cut so fast that you may have the quota set at a very low exploitation rate? Do you ever look at the speed at which the quota is caught when you look at the opening and closing of these pelagic fisheries?