Fisheries committee  Thank you all very much.

Fisheries committee  That's really a tough question, and I'm not saying that because I don't want to give an answer. There are pros and cons to different approaches. I'm sure you're going to hear about the last-in, first-out approach with the shrimp fishery in Newfoundland. Brace yourselves; it's going to be interesting.

Fisheries committee  I work, I believe, quite closely with them. My background is in invertebrate science, so earlier in my career I was doing more fisheries management and fisheries research work, and I worked very closely with the scientists in the gulf region on snow crab and lobster, as well as in the Scotia-Fundy region.

Fisheries committee  One thing I didn't talk much about today is area 4X. You can see on your chart that's in southwest Nova Scotia, which is pretty much the southern range. There are a few pockets of snow crab in the Gulf of Maine, but there's no commercial industry as such. Lobster is our challenge with the U.S., not snow crab.

Fisheries committee  We promote snow crab at various events and in various circumstances. We had a snow crab promotion in Europe a couple of years ago at the European seafood show. This usually has theme years, and one year we had a snow crab theme. To be perfectly honest, again, it comes to resources.

Fisheries committee  I am assuming you mean DFO. Again, that's a tough one to answer. You will never really be able to do everything that needs to be done; it's a balancing act. I've always been a proponent of as much field research as possible, and that we apply the federal DFO dollars to hands-on research out there.

Fisheries committee  Yes, Minister Belliveau made that recommendation to DFO on a couple of occasions. The idea is to have such a mechanism, if there is to be a new fisheries act. So if a new fisheries act is coming soon and will be in place soon, then it's going to be addressed. But as I mentioned earlier, if that's not a reality, then maybe it should be addressed in its own right.

Fisheries committee  I believe even the science folks are pretty supportive. We're really concerned that this concept of not giving any special deals might be a factor in the decision. And as everyone knows, there is a lot of turmoil and there are a lot of unhappy campers in area 12 right now. That situation should not dictate how things are managed in area 19.

Fisheries committee  One of the challenges would be the allocation disputes. It would be a good thing if we could move past those--in area 12, for example, or in areas 23 and 24--and have all the harvesting sector working together for their interests. Another challenge is the harvester-dealer distrust.

Fisheries committee  It's my understanding that the decline in the biomass was being observed. It was going to go in a downward cycle. It gets back a bit to the whole idea of industry flexibility. If the industry decides to take them now because they're not going to be there in two years' time and it's really not going to make a difference at a stock level, then it's more of an economic decision of those who benefit or don't from the resource.

Fisheries committee  Excuse me, are you talking about a connection with that spill now, or that something similar could happen in the Gulf of St. Lawrence?

Fisheries committee  I guess I am way beyond my expertise on this one, but I have discussed some of the concerns involved with some folks, and I've been watching this very closely, as all of us have in Canada. I guess some good news, if there is any good news, is that some of the major currents in the Gulf of Mexico change over time, but the pattern that exists today is that there is a bit of a gyre in the northern part of the Gulf of Mexico.

Fisheries committee  I mentioned earlier on the issue of allocation disputes that our minister has put forward the concept of some kind of board or panel to hear issues when there are serious conflicts. In the case of routine management, I don't think you would need such a panel year after year. I think the best way is to have co-management plans that are developed with the industry and DFO.

Fisheries committee  That's a tough one. I'll tell you, I've worked with scientists for many years. I participated in CAFSAC. I participated in the RAP sessions for decades. If I had been at those meetings this year, I would have been fairly aggressively arguing, why do we have these precautionary concepts?

Fisheries committee  Yes. The largest barrier is access to capital. In Nova Scotia, the traditional way to get in has been through private financing from another processor, another fisherman, and they're commonly known as trust agreements. Trust agreements, in their own right.... If it's just a money arrangement, it's not that big a deal.