Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today, and thank you to the Office of the Auditor General for their observations and recommendations. I'm going to speak briefly to the slides that are in the deck we sent to you. The Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation was establi

Public Accounts committee  I started in late February 2016.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  I would just respond to your first observation about the inappropriate situation of having a president be the chairperson of the board at the same time. That is actually prescribed by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Act. It's in the law.

Public Accounts committee  Therefore, there was no alternative but that. Yes, we are facing a situation where the continuation of the corporation as a crown corporation is certainly in question. We have taken steps to secure supplies by entering into contracts with fishers by ensuring that the corporation

Public Accounts committee  That's correct.

Public Accounts committee  Well, they have been reviewed and there are targets set at this point in time. I would point out that some of the observations in 2005 and 2010 were acted upon, but they fell by the wayside. A lot of our practices on human resource hiring and dealing with that were not followed.

Public Accounts committee  We have re-established the human resources policies regarding hiring people. We have done the risk evaluation and put in place mitigation for those risks. I might turn to Mr. Lazar on some of the issues around yield, etc., but action has been taken to do that, and the results dem

Public Accounts committee  That is the biggest source of our profitability. However, I would point out that we've made progress with respect to whitefish. We've had a significant problem—

Public Accounts committee  Yes, that is a risk we have to worry about. That's why the corporation, in evaluating that risk, has developed the strategy of entering into contracts with fish suppliers. If you're a fisherman, you need to make a decision if you're going to work with the corporation and sell all

Public Accounts committee  There are two board members still around. Actually, that's an interesting question, because what happened leading up to the audit was that a number of staff who were there in the past were removed and replaced, following a system that was not acceptable. We had to correct that.

Public Accounts committee  There are two, yes.

Public Accounts committee  I would point out, however, that they were among the people who were raising issues with the Government of Canada that led to the appointment of new board members, the replacement of the president who was responsible at the time, and so on. Those are the people who were acting to

Public Accounts committee  We kept the ones who were in it for the long haul.