Fisheries committee  I'm glad you mentioned that. We're not against sharing. Had the quota been in great shape, it wouldn't be an issue. We wouldn't be in this discussion at all. We wouldn't be having this committee had we had a viable industry, but the crisis comes about when you don't have a viable industry.

Fisheries committee  You talk about the number of plants. In New Brunswick there are no new licensed plants, and there's a degree of self-rationalization that's taking place. There's only so much capacity that a province can handle. We're not facing the outlook of licensing new plants. The plants that are presently operating could be doing their own rationalization process as they move forward.

Fisheries committee  We could argue this until the cows come home. We were bracing ourselves for 40%, and the industry was getting ready, the harvesting sector, the processing. They felt that 40% was bad enough, yet they were finding some glimmers of light, some hope to be able to get through it. Nobody knew that 63% was coming.

Fisheries committee  If I recall, when working with that report and when working with Gilles Thériault on that report, yes, there was some discussion with respect to what was happening with the resource and the cyclical decline. By the same token, at that time there was crab going every which way. They were talking about how many plant workers should be coming into the plants, where the plant workers were going to be going.

Fisheries committee  Access management...we talk about resource management. Right across the line we've been dealing with a capacity issue: too many fishers chasing too few fish. Fleet rationalization, I think, is an area that we really have to get serious about, start talking about. Why are the resources overfished?

Fisheries committee  Sure. Okay.

Fisheries committee  Okay. You kind of skipped on MSC certification. You talked about investment and value-added programs, the federal government in a crisis like this, and access management. So basically there are four things. Look, I'll tell you something. I'm for certification. We've been working on the market side for ages, and its not great, but since I've come into it, for four years one of the things I've really been clear on is that the markets have changed and the world has changed.

Fisheries committee  Yes, the name has changed, but it was Human Resources Development Canada, with respect to qualifying weeks for employees and whether some adjustments could be made to get these people over the hump during this crisis. You can't throw this at us and then walk away from it. We all have an obligation here.

Fisheries committee  God, you've given me a buffet.

Fisheries committee  Thank you for that question. It's kind of interesting because we can go back a couple of months. At the time, at the Boston Seafood Show, where I did have the opportunity to have some discussion with the minister and the regional minister for New Brunswick, who is the Honourable Keith Ashfield, one of the things....

Fisheries committee  We've had some discussions on that aspect, but I guess it's “don't close the door on us”. From our meetings in Ottawa, I was hoping we'd at least be able to establish a working group at the senior bureaucratic level at DFO, along with our group, to move forward. How do we move forward?

Fisheries committee  One moment, please.

Fisheries committee  Look, I'll tell you something. Had I known the 63% was coming, I think we would probably have been bracing the industry. We didn't know the 63% was coming. We were anticipating 40%. We were averaging in the area of about 40%.

Fisheries committee  Excuse me. I was trying to drink a little bit of water. I was over at Grand Manan this morning and I had some fresh Grand Manan dulse. It was a little salty. Just a second. I've got to turn this creature on. It's just like a remote control. Okay.

Fisheries committee  Thank you to the member for the question. You know, at this point in time we have our department, we're on the ground, we have the post-secondary education and the mobility program on the ground, so at this point in time, no. We're concerned about the socio-economic aspect of it presently.