Fisheries committee  How did that happen?

Fisheries committee  One thing I'm getting very frustrated with is that we've sent letters. We sent a letter to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans months ago, in August, saying, “We want you to get back here and talk to us, because there is a lot of unrest going on.” We never even got a response to it.

Fisheries committee  I've had conversations with the P.E.I. Fishermen's Association in Prince Edward Island. We've had our talks. I've talked to DFO on Prince Edward Island, and I pretty much was saying that we really need to sit down and have a discussion around this, because I think they need to know what their role is.

Fisheries committee  Obviously, they're struggling.

Fisheries committee  Well, what I'll say is this. To me, all you have to do is look at the last three months and see what happened in Nova Scotia to see that there is systemic racism in our system. You can't deny that. I think the people who don't want to come out and say there's systemic racism are denying it to themselves.

Fisheries committee  No.

Fisheries committee  The negotiations should be done by CIRNAC.

Fisheries committee  I didn't have time to look through them. There were still three pages. I will just answer questions. Unless I—

Fisheries committee  I don't understand. I'm not getting the English interpretation.

Fisheries committee  Okay. I'm sorry about that. I apologize.

Fisheries committee  Do you want me to continue where I was reading?

Fisheries committee  We've just barely begun the whole idea of being engaged in our community and talking about the livelihood fishery. We're just beginning that, so we're setting up a plan. We plan on engaging every community member, 16 and up, talking to them about the livelihood fishery, what their thoughts are on it and how they see it happening.

Fisheries committee  I think that in the process we really do have to engage our communities. Both bands are committed in Abegweit. There are only two bands in P.E.I. We are committed to looking at it together in unity to build that framework. We have L'nuey, which is our rights-based initiative. They are going to be helping us with this to be able to build that framework around this on Prince Edward Island.

Fisheries committee  Okay.

Fisheries committee  I would just want to say quickly about DFO's role, that it is to work with us to help us develop our enforcement capabilities and our science ability and to work with them to make sure that our waters are being fished safely and following the regulations that we put forward. In other words, I don't expect them to be cutting my traps.