Fisheries committee  It is up to a point in time, yes.

Fisheries committee  We have VMS. We have the facility to monitor where the vessels are, and that's done in near real time in terms of getting the signals from the vessels and having that analyzed. So that, plus normal air surveillance and patrols, would be the key for monitoring.

Fisheries committee  It's all a matter of access. Obviously, the people who used to fish there want to follow the fish, and if the fish are crowding up against area 19, that's where they want to go. We didn't have a consensus on a lot of these issues because of the interests of the fishers on whatever side of the line they were on.

Fisheries committee  We haven't come to a conclusion on the next steps, but I think we have to have further talks with crab fishermen over the course of the fall, because I think there's also a need to evaluate how the fishery is doing. We had moved to oceans to plate. One of the problems we've had in the crab fishery has been glut and waste, and we have to monitor what happens this year.

Fisheries committee  That's what the decision was for this year, but we need to look at longer-term solutions for all of it, whether it's improving the value or trying to work out these issues.

Fisheries committee  This year we had a number of proposals for that. We could leave it alone or also go to a buffer zone of some substantial size. The minister's decision was to make a compromise and put in place a one-nautical-mile buffer on that zone, which would remain until the end of the month of May.

Fisheries committee  The short answer is yes. The big question is on timing, and we're hopeful that it's going to come in time for this season.

Fisheries committee  The decision to get or not to get certification should be one taken by the industry. What we need to do, though, is provide a lot better foundation from which all sectors of the industry can work. That's what the checklist is about. That's why we're working closely with science and with industry to move ahead with this kind of approach.

Fisheries committee  We received some incremental money—I can't recall the amount—for science, for resource management. We got $1.6 million extra because of the added complexity these fishing plans are now going to have to encompass.

Fisheries committee  Obviously we have to obtain information relative to distribution, and past patterns of distribution are proving to be remarkably unreliable in today's environment. We're seeing fish move into areas where they haven't been in the past, and they're not in areas where they have been.

Fisheries committee  Clearly, the Marine Stewardship Council or some other version of eco-labelling and attestation to the sustainability of fisheries is going to become a key factor in gaining access to markets. Wal-Mart has made its views known on this; they're going to require eco-labelling on all the products they handle.

Fisheries committee  We reviewed this, and there are about 170 fisheries that had some kind of use of fish involvement, and that would include everything from test fisheries on the west coast for salmon, to sentinel fisheries, to arrangements that were used to fund science and other activities. We've set up a policy to review all of those 170 fisheries relevant to the budget that we received.

Fisheries committee  The $29 million is for the salmon enhancement program on the west coast.

Fisheries committee  No. There was an initial endowment on the west coast for a fund that's similar to the east coast program. However, there is a separate program, which at one point was much larger, that is now being stably funded at $29 million a year. That program runs various hatcheries on the west coast.

Fisheries committee  Certainly the programs are much larger on the west coast than they ever were on the east coast. Both sets of programs were reduced under program review. The salmon enhancement program on the west coast is now a little over 50% of its previous high level. There has been a cut in both, but the program on the west coast is much larger and obviously is funded at a higher level.