Fisheries committee  Canada would be the dominant enforcement player, but the European Union has a patrol vessel that spends a considerable portion of the year in NAFO waters as well. I don't think there's anybody else. I think those are the only two parties, as far as I know.

Fisheries committee  But that's done currently on a volunteer basis through the Marine Stewardship Council. In fact, there was one just recently on our shrimp fishery, for example.

Fisheries committee  I'm not all that knowledgeable on the issue of flagging. I'm not aware of anything in the proposed new measures or the proposed new convention that would change whatever the status quo is in that regard.

Fisheries committee  With the proposed change, I'd vote for it.

Fisheries committee  I suppose they could do a lot of things. In past NAFO meetings, what is particularly galling to me—and certainly, I'm sure, it would be to you if you had to sit there and listen to it—is they've lectured Canada. If there's one area where I took issue with the various heads of delegations for Canada over the years, it's for tolerating it without coming back and throwing a fastball right at their head.

Fisheries committee  They tried to do that, but the end result was that we just simply said no, we're doing what we're doing, pound sand with a heavy mallet, and we're going to carry on. And that is clearly what we have to say under that provision in the thing.

Fisheries committee  Yes, and they cried foul and we said that was too bad, that's what we're doing anyway. So I think that's an example of where, yes, they've used that, and they got on their high horse. I think that's one area. In fact, I frequently volunteered to take over the microphone, on behalf of Canada, on that particular issue, but for some reason they didn't take me up on it.

Fisheries committee  I'm not defending it or looking for it. That's what emerged from those negotiations. I look at what the total package is and which is our better option. That's really what it comes down to. If someone had said “Here, Mr. McCurdy, would you please write the NAFO convention”, I'd have been pleased to oblige, but unfortunately, nobody did.

Fisheries committee  That's a tough question. I think it ebbs and flows over time. I agree with the comments that Mr. Applebaum and Mr. Parsons made last week—I forget who, but I think it was Mr. Applebaum—that there were signs these countries were cleaning up their act after the turbot war. But over time, the reverberations of that bullet died down, and they started to slip back into their old ways.

Fisheries committee  I think what's fundamentally different about the concept of custodial management, in the minds of most people who advocated, as compared to what's proposed under this new draft convention for NAFO, is the question of the power to enforce. We can force vessels in certain circumstances into Canadian ports, but we can't force them into Canadian courts, and that's the fundamental difference.

Fisheries committee  I guess it's always easy to second-guess negotiations done by somebody else. In the world I have to operate in, you have to make choices between the real choices--not the ones you wish for--on the table. On that one, the full debate on NAFO reform did not take place at the full NAFO table.

Fisheries committee  No one to my knowledge has ever asked for any kind of policing role in the Canadian zone. I've only heard of another country asking for access to fish in the Canadian zone and the right to use Canadian ports. That's the only thing I'm aware of that they've ever asked for.

Fisheries committee  The background of that clause, as I understand it, and I'm not an advocate or a supporter of it, is that there have been cases in other regional fisheries management organizations in which either the capacity of the coastal state was in question or there was another reason why a coastal state....

Fisheries committee  From time to time they've asked for the right to catch quota in the Canadian zone, and the answer for the last umpteen years has been no. At one time the answer fairly frequently was yes, in return for other considerations.

Fisheries committee  That was my recollection from some years ago.