My thanks to our witnesses for being here today.
On the committee side, I see a lot of fishy colleagues who've been on the fisheries committees for many years. They all seem to be present in the room today. Obviously, we have the attention of the fisheries crew.
A lot has changed since the original agreement on NAFO in 1978. Those of us who sat around the table in fisheries for a number of years heard a lot of objections from the fishing community. We also heard about the challenges that the department and the country were having under the old agreement.
I know the amendments being proposed to this agreement have taken at least a couple of years to come up with. We have changes in the UNCLOS, the convention on the sea, coming in since. We have other agreements that are making a difference in fisheries management, what with the whole shift toward an ecosystem-based approach.
In the last few years, even since these changes have been under consideration and the management has changed, beyond our 200-mile limit, particularly on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap, where we have vessels patrolling, we see that infractions have decreased significantly. You mentioned statistics showing that the number of infractions in the last number of years have been steadily decreasing. I would call that a success, so it seems that we're definitely moving in the right direction.
I'm wondering if you could describe for us how the dispute settlement process actually works under the amended agreement.