Fisheries committee  There's money being spent by the department in hatcheries on the Atlantic coast, but not on the same scale, and certainly not through a program that's A-based the way it is on the west coast.

Fisheries committee  On the west coast there are a number of coastal communities and industry groups that are reliant on the salmon. The enhanced salmon do provide fishing opportunities ranging from Prince Rupert down to the south coast and--

Fisheries committee  That's correct. On the west coast we have a commercial element that doesn't exist any more on the Atlantic coast. We have on both coasts, of course, aboriginal and recreational fishing; it's just that the scale is much larger in British Columbia. The value for coastal communities is reliant on salmon in many cases, where it's not in Atlantic Canada.

Fisheries committee  Yes, we did actually see a significant improvement in the performance of the fishery from the point of view of avoiding unsustainable bycatch, and it worked very well from the point of view of making sure that the catches of all species, including rockfish, were well within the safe biological limits and that all catches were documented.

Fisheries committee  I'd just add that Transport Canada, of course, is involved in negotiations and consultations with various stakeholders, and they have no intention, as I understand it, to gazette the proposed regulations in the immediate future. They're continuing with the consultations, and that phase has not yet wrapped up.

Fisheries committee  There are discussions at the Pacific Salmon Commission level that involve, as you know, commissioners from both parties. Decisions have to be made as to whether or not we're going to extend the provisions that exist now or do we want to renegotiate. Renegotiation has significant risks as both sets of fishermen view that as an opportunity to get more.

Fisheries committee  It's in the range of half, because we are the ones with the biggest catches in the area. It's about half. The next biggest one is the U.S.

Fisheries committee  Clearly, the track report of NAFO over the last 20 years would lead one to be suspicious. But the process that was agreed to last year was that you could object, and then you start a process. Now that process has timelines in it; therefore, by the time it's finished, there will be a relatively small window available to the objecting party to actually fish, because he must object after the meeting but before the fishing is allowed to start.

Fisheries committee  There was a process. The strategy was called the international fisheries and oceans governance strategy. That included a lot of additional time, certainly in the NAFO regulatory area, more fishery officers, and strategies to create the conditions for change by working in other fora such as the FAO and the UN General Assembly.

Fisheries committee  The latter wasn't done. There was a long debate between the departments and between ministers as to what kind of person it should be, and it was ultimately a decision by ministers.

Fisheries committee  It's not common. It reflects the interest of the Government of Canada in trying to move ahead on this agenda. In reference to the NAFO meeting, we aren't going to resolve all the issues of NAFO in one week. It's a body that looks at the management of a number of stocks but with lots of interest.

Fisheries committee  Actually, the minister has delegated that to officials. Generally speaking, at NAFO meetings we go with a mandate from the minister, and we obviously check in with the minister, but we have two commissioners and an official who would represent the country at the table. So there are some changes being contemplated in who the commissioners should be, but right now it would be me as the head of delegation at the NAFO meeting.

Fisheries committee  We have, in the past, pursued that with the United States in our bilateral sessions. Recently we haven't focused on that. We've had other bilateral issues with them around the Machias Seal Island, cooperative work in NAFO, and other agenda items. The other issue there was that the markets were very good for the pelts, so we had no trouble selling the pelts coming from the seal hunt.

Fisheries committee  That would reflect the sunsetting of the Marshall program. That is the major component of the reduction for resource management.

Fisheries committee  On the chinook and coho, we have a policy that provides the sports fishery sector the priority access on that. We'll have to look into the timing of the fisheries and whether that had a bearing on their ability to access appropriate amounts of fish that are there for the priority of the sports fishery, the recreational fishing sector.