On that particular question of two-thirds voting instead of majorities, I was a member of all the NAFO delegations and all the NAFO meetings from the beginning of NAFO in 1978 until I retired in 1995. In every one of those meetings, we had to scramble to get a simple majority vote for any decision that involved cutting down total allowable catch limits. On any conservation measure that restricted fisheries—smaller or larger mesh sizes, whatever the issues were—every single time we had to work amazingly hard to get a majority vote.
This new system will now change that. Now they will have to work even harder to get a two-thirds vote, because the people who don't want to lose fish catches are the ones who are going to be saying, “Well, we just won't go along with this unless you give us some, and then we'll join you and make it two-thirds.” It will have to increase the catches over the years.
Second is this two-thirds business of protecting Canadian percentage shares. Well, yes, but the Canadian percentage shares are there and you'd need a two-thirds vote to overturn them. Shares are only shares of a catch that you can make. Over the long term, the total allowable catches go down; the fish disappear. You have 40%, as you always had, but of what? Your 40% turns into 100 tonnes, 50 tonnes, 10 tonnes, but you have your 40%.