Fisheries committee  What you have is the total allowable catch set by the department; and perhaps the FFAW, in conjunction with local fleets, have made arrangements whereby each individual gets a share. That's an informal IQ; it's not in-licence conditions and things like that. So it—

Fisheries committee  We get pressure from individuals to go to larger vessels when they're replacing. They may find a vessel that exceeds the size limit and want to use it. They may have a mix of licences, as you pointed out, with a larger size limit for one licence than another. We get pressure from individuals.

Fisheries committee  The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has put in limits because we need to avoid overcapitalization. In the long term that leads to pressure on the resource as a result of pushing to have the quotas high, but also as a result of the need for people to pay the bills. They'll do what's needed to pay the bills if they're pushed economically.

Fisheries committee  Where you have a competitive fishery, where there is no individual limit, and the amount of fish being caught by an enterprise is open within the constraints of the fishing plan and the TAC, then what you would have in the case of no limits on capacity is an increase in capacity that will eventually have an impact on conservation.

Fisheries committee  We established the vessel length rules to avoid overcapacity for a type of fishery, We don't aim at increasing the safety of fishermen, since this is the responsibility of Transport Canada. On our side, we have established these limits for the viability of the fishing industry. It is the responsibility of the master and of Transport Canada to ensure that operations are safe.

Fisheries committee  For any fishery that's ITQ, IQ, or any of those types of fisheries, we don't occupy ourselves with limits on the vessels. Where we are concerned is in terms of overcapitalization, bad use of capital, and creating the situation where people are pushing themselves to further invest in capacity when they don't have enough fish to make it pay.

Fisheries committee  Mr. Chair, we'll be looking at vessel length and safety. Vessel length rules came into play in the 1970s. They were put in place in an attempt to limit the capitalization of the fleet and the capacity of the fleet. They gradually became criteria for defining fishing fleets on allocation and access.

Fisheries committee  Truly this is a formidable challenge. There aren't enough fish to issue licenses to all of the fishers. We need to come up with another way of meeting this challenge head on and of finding a permanent solution. I think the process outlined by the minister is a sound approach. Agreements with the crabbers are in place and when we must decrease the quotas, there aren't enough resources to go around.

Fisheries committee  On hake, we have reached a tentative arrangement with the Americans and are living by that arrangement while they ratify the treaty, so the sharing is no longer an issue. We don't, therefore, have unilateral quotas set by Canada and the U.S. that add up to more than the scientific advice.

Fisheries committee  We're considering ways to perhaps go to individual vessel quotas or some other licensing regime to try to eliminate this race to the animals that has caused the quotas to be exceeded in the past number of years. But we're not saying that's how we're going to end up. We have to talk to the industry.

Fisheries committee  We had a pretty successful communications campaign in Canada. We can't convince about 30% of people that this is an acceptable activity, but we have good support in the Canadian context, based on our polling. Where we need to step it up is in the markets in Europe and to some extent in the United States.

Fisheries committee  There is a problem with the number of teams that are not always available for the hunters. They need more people. We're having talks with the hunters to find a way to get boats, captains and support teams for next year. So we have to ensure that the hunters have the required qualifications to take part in the hunt.

Fisheries committee  I don't think so, since we don't have the necessary resources for that. Our responsibility is to ensure that the hunt is sustainable.

Fisheries committee  We previously had to eliminate subsidies for seal meat. So we left it up to the market and the industry to find better ways to use seal products. We don't have the opportunity to do this kind of research. In fact, our responsibility is to ensure the hunt's sustainability and that it is carried out without cruelty.

Fisheries committee  Next year we want to increase our activities in Europe.