Fisheries committee  I would like to comment on that. To my mind, one of the biggest threats to the health and assessment of the stocks is the disagreement between industry and the scientists. That is a key part of the issue. We are never able to create a working program or reach a conclusion on the

Fisheries committee  You can set aside the economic aspect and simply focus on the social side, but the two go hand in hand. The economic aspect is not disproportionate. Prior to the 1990s, the philosophy for managing and protecting fish stocks was determined primarily by corporate economic concerns.

Fisheries committee  We wanted a political decision to be made to somewhat counter the scientific tendency. Immediately after having drafted the document, we went to meet with the scientists in Moncton, directly on the ground. It was, in a way, on enemy ground. We explained our approach to them. We t

Fisheries committee  What I can tell you on that is this: recently, we commissioned an assessment by a fishing equipment expert, and managed to show that when fishing gear is poorly adjusted, it does not only show the wrong readings—low readings—but might show that the catch for the assessment is zer

Fisheries committee  To summarize the problem of assessing the health of cod stocks and the gap between scientists and the industry, I would add that the bond of trust is broken. The only way to bring things back into balance and bring the two parties to talk to one another is to try for a genuinely