Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for your presentation, gentlemen.
We seem to have gone from what I would regard as at least a 20-year history of dissatisfaction in this country to what now appears to be sweetness and light in the future. You know, just for colleagues on the committee, this dispute about NAFO's role goes back to the attempt by Canada to control its fish stocks, which happened to be outside of 200 miles but on the continental shelf, the so-called “straddling stocks”. This resulted in a call going on for many years for Canada to have some control over these fish stocks, resulting in 2006 in a unanimous report of the fisheries and oceans committee calling for custodial management by Canada of the fish stocks on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. This was adopted, of course, by the Conservative Party. The previous Minister of Fisheries in the last government, of course, had adopted this as his policy as well, having been a member of this committee.
I noticed in your presentation no mention whatsoever of the notion of custodial management, which Canada was supposedly trying to achieve in these negotiations. In fact, what we have instead, following on the heels of, for example, the time between 2004 and 2008, is a total allowable catch that has been exceeded by 30% on average on the turbot. We have a moratorium on other stocks. We have the rules having been ignored up till then. There's been under-reporting, misreporting of catch, targeted fishing for moratorium species under the guise of bycatch--all sorts of problems that have been brought about. Yet now we have a situation where there's a proposal by the EU to have management of Canadian fish stocks inside the 200-mile limit. It started off as a proposal that NAFO would actually conduct this management inside or outside the 200-mile limit, which I think was negotiated down, with the consent of the state.
Perhaps you could explain to me, in a situation where Canada is calling for custodial management of its own stocks, why would the EU put on the table a proposal that NAFO should control the stocks both inside and outside of the 200-mile limit?