Madam Chairman, I certainly appreciate the member's comments. He is a great member of our fisheries committee and is very knowledgeable on these fisheries issues.
I would like to ask him a question. I have a report from Fisheries and Oceans Canada's Science Branch, the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat, which is “not to be cited without permission of the authors”, but I guess in this place that really does not matter. It is an assessment of the cod in the southern gulf of St. Lawrence. It states that the directed cod fishery in the southern gulf of St. Lawrence was closed in September 1993 and states:
The trend in the research survey index since 1993 suggests there has not been any increase in the abundance of the stock. Weights-at-age appear to be increasing but are low and natural mortality...appears to remain high...The stock assessment indicates population biomass remains low, similar to the mid-1970s, and is near the lowest seen since 1950. The spawning stock biomass in 2002 is estimated at 84,000 t[onnes] compared to 87,000 in 2001 as estimated in the previous assessment...Rebuilding of spawning biomass over the next 2-3 years is unlikely.
To me this suggests that we have a problem that has been longstanding. The member has suggested in his comments that the government has ignored the fishermen in the area, the people who have an interest in the fishery. Here we have the government's science department saying something very definitive and very clear. In his estimation, why has this message not been getting through to the government across the way?