Fisheries committee  I appreciate your time, and I'll respect the last call for the bar when I hear the time. Mr. Chairperson, committee members, industry representatives, members of the public, and other invited guests, I do appreciate your time to have us express our opinions and concerns around

Fisheries committee  The other hat is of an alliance. We have created an alliance with the FFAW/CAW, with the alliance of Quebec fish harvesters; we have also included organizations in Nova Scotia—we have three of them that have recently joined our group. We are promoting—and this was the long term,

Fisheries committee  Thanks for the opportunity to mention that I did make available some copies of a proposal we've been developing with this alliance. It would be made available to you shortly, I suppose, or on your way back. There is a short brief that was circulated, so that gives you at least a

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  That's exactly what we're proposing. We're suggesting that the FFAW or the MFU could propose a way to go forward, come up with a solution for rationalization and access this fund. This fund would have two or three criteria to be able to get this capital. They would explain how th

Fisheries committee  We felt that it was very difficult to express our short-term and long-term concerns at this round table. We found it very valuable in terms of bringing the industry together for once. I think that hasn't been done in quite a few years. I think that was very beneficial. We've als

Fisheries committee  That's a shame, because I think we were--

Fisheries committee  To have the organization not being funded. I would suppose that is what has happened. I think this was a way to bring the different sectors of the industry together to express their views on many aspects. That's probably going to disappear. I hear there's a subcommittee in some

Fisheries committee  That's what we believe. That doesn't mean that will happen. Obviously, market forces are at times very hard to predict. We've experienced that in recent years. We think there is an enormous inventory. There is also what we call a glut or bottleneck of lobster coming out at the s

Fisheries committee  We feel that it's an essential piece in this puzzle. It has been driven and led, in our view, by a lot of the processing sector concerns, but there's always a process, you know, and you change that process along the way. You begin with a very large view. I think we were heading t

Fisheries committee  There are copies of the larger proposal document floating around. I think you'll find a lot of details in there that could generate some discussion.

Fisheries committee  I do think there will be more lay-offs by the start of the season. The fishermen have done their best, with the means at their disposal, to communicate with all those people and to convince them of the situation that could arise. I don't think the fishermen yet realize what could

Fisheries committee  We've had an enormous amount of difficulty getting figures for New Brunswick. We initially held a number of meetings. The province of New Brunswick also took some steps to obtain the information. It's very hard to get information on our province. We know that there is a large in

Fisheries committee  As I explained a little earlier, the idea is to create a fund in order to arrive at a lobster rationalization solution. The details on that amount are obviously substantiated in the document. We developed a calculation based on the Atlantic Canada fleets that are having viabilit

Fisheries committee  Well, I guess the really short answer is that it's about both. I think it's about an equilibrium. When we look at sustainability, I think we've all learned that it's difficult to divide and economize on the individual participants, the fish harvesters, and the resource. I would