Fisheries committee  Merci, Mr. Chair. Slide 4 of the deck presented to the committee outlines the aspects of my mandate that I alluded to in my opening. I can reiterate some of the key points. The areas would be to represent the ministers in pressing important issues internationally as a spokesper

Fisheries committee  Yes, I understand where you're coming from. I guess on the other side of that, what right could allow you to demand a halt for a period of time until it's resolved, when it's going through a process? You know, is it a case of guilty until a verdict is rendered, or are you innoc

Fisheries committee  On the cost factor at NAFO, for example--and I am sure Mr. Bevan would be more enlightened than me on that—I am familiar with the shares that are being paid now. In regard to how you arrive at that, I wouldn't be able to tell you historically how they would be arrived at. But I'm

Fisheries committee  First of all, I don't think there is anything there to indicate that fishing must halt immediately until it's dealt with. There's a period of time when they could be fishing, but—

Fisheries committee  I wouldn't want to comment, other than just to make a general comment about our areas. There are significant areas within our exclusive economic zone where there are areas for protection. That's an issue I think would be more appropriately addressed within the department. But a

Fisheries committee  The sport fishing industry I think would be a domestic issue. It would only become international to the extent that there was an impact on a stock from others fishing within a certain RFMO. My understanding is that sport fishing--you can certainly enlighten me on this--would be c

Fisheries committee  First of all, Mr. Chair, I'm certainly prepared to deal with any type of issue that comes up during my mandate. With reference to B.C., I had an opportunity to have a meeting, at the request of the B.C. government, with their ADM and two of their other senior officials there to

Fisheries committee  Well, overall, it depends on who your target audience is. If your target audience is the public, you would want to put your information out, get facts on the table and lay them out. If you're dealing with media, you want to ensure that they have all of the information needed to m

Fisheries committee  Mr. Stoffer, just to clarify, the point I indicated earlier was not that we don't fish on the high seas, outside our 200 exclusion. I said Canada's fishing is limited in comparison to other countries depending on it. I think that was the reference there. I'm a strong believer in

Fisheries committee  Monsieur Blais, in that regard, right now the European community, the European Union, is looking at doing a particular in-depth, very comprehensive look at the seal hunt. They have rendered a verdict on the sustainability of that hunt; they've indicated the hunt is sustainable.

Fisheries committee  I'll certainly answer. If you want more specifics from Mr. Bevan than I would have, I'll certainly defer to him. There is no doubt about it. I met with the EU ambassador on two occasions. I'm meeting with the Danish ambassador on areas of mutual interest to us overall in this a

Fisheries committee  I'll give my personal view of it. It's not necessarily that nations would have ambassadors in specific areas. For ambassadors to other countries, there have been various ambassadors in the past who were appointed for special purposes, and Canada had three previous ones. For othe

Fisheries committee  Probably five days after being appointed, I met with European journalists in St. John's to hear more on the seal hunt and to educate them. I spent an hour or an hour and a half answering questions from the European journalists, in order to penetrate the public of Europe in those

Fisheries committee  I alluded earlier to some specific areas that were part of the NAFO conservation and enforcement measures. Three of the ones I alluded to earlier came into effect on January 1. I guess the significant change to the convention that will be on the table in Montreal in April at a me

Fisheries committee  That wouldn't be my responsibility. My responsibility will be to advance Canada's efforts internationally on the sealing issue and to defend the seal harvest on an international basis. And not necessarily just to defend; I think it's to promote the seal harvest, not defend it, be