Madam Chair, the money that was made available to the harvesters allowed them to make really tough decisions with regard to whether they would fish for the season. A number of people took advantage of this program. They desperately needed these benefits because they knew the fishery was in dire straits when we started COVID-19. They were actually one of the first industries impacted by the pandemic. They saw the decline of the fisheries in early February when everything was still moving across the world.
We knew it was important to ensure that harvesters had the money they needed to make those tough decisions about whether they were going to fish this year. One of the—