Yes. Thank you.
Madam Chair, in the budget there was one measure that provided close to $7 million for each of the next five years specifically for fisheries science and for rebuilding plants. From our understanding, that was to avoid a step-down in existing funding that was put in place in a previous budget, so it just maintains the status quo. It's not going to avoid any further gaps. It's not going to close any of the gaps that currently exist.
The problem we're facing is that if we don't have consistent, quality science, then fisheries management decisions will end up being ultra-cautious, which leaves economic benefit in the water unnecessarily. We've had a case where we lost our third party certification because we didn't have the data to use as evidence in the audits to maintain the certification. That costs us millions of dollars from losing access to premium markets, and costs profitability for companies and operators.