Fisheries committee  Merci. My position is 50-50 shared through Foreign Affairs and DFO. I report to both ministers through the respective deputy ministers on the position.

Fisheries committee  With reference to the first question, Mr. Chair, when I bring information and I deal with the international community, I speak with one voice for Canada. There are no two voices I speak with; Canada has to speak with one voice. I would bring to that an emphasis that we have to b

Fisheries committee  First of all, the bigger picture, I guess, is the NAFO Convention. We have conservation enforcement measures that don't need changes to the convention. Overall, it is getting countries to agree to UNFA. There are now 65 countries that have signed on to UNFA, as of March 7. They'r

Fisheries committee  I guess there's one aspect overall. We're aware that the Faroese have been fishing in 3L shrimp in an amount that, as you've said, while it has been reduced, is still not down to a level that's within the quota based on scientific advice. So we have to stress, number one, the

Fisheries committee  Overall, if we look at NAFO, for example, and if you wanted me to elaborate on how we might deal with that, one of the areas in advancing governance in the NAFO area was last September agreeing to changes in enforcement and management, which came into effect on January 1, and als

Fisheries committee  I'd like to indicate that in the past I have never personally rendered an opinion on custodial management overall, but overall, I feel the situation that's important is that we have to manage fisheries in our FMOs, which are in areas on the high seas that all countries have a rig

Fisheries committee  First of all, I think we have to look at two periods, prior to September NAFO and post-September NAFO. During this period last year, for example, there were 28 on-board inspections and seven violations. This year, with 30 since September, there have been no violations or no citat

Fisheries committee  They're in play. Enforcement measures would be if there's a violation, a serious violation, some repeat offenders, fishing for directed species in these areas, you would have to go and report.

Fisheries committee  A just penalty would be a penalty that's going to be a very, very significant deterrent to fishing in that area.

Fisheries committee  It would inflict such hardship on them that it would discourage that fishing in the future.

Fisheries committee  That would be a just penalty in my estimation.

Fisheries committee  Overall, each country has its own system of jurisprudence. If a case is brought before any particular country, we can set legislation in our country, and our courts could render penalties in line with what we do.

Fisheries committee  We would like to see a common system of penalties and punishment doled out to whichever contracting party in NAFO was there, regardless of where, but we don't have jurisdiction over the court system in other countries. We just don't have that. That's fundamental. I mean UNCLOS—

Fisheries committee  They haven't. That's why it's so important that we keep working on it.

Fisheries committee  I think we need to get those countries—And that's what I mean. I mean building cooperation, building this to encourage those countries to adopt the same levels of punishment or to give it a higher priority when in their states, when in their jurisdictions.