Fisheries committee  That gets tangly. The board is certainly clear, in all of our recommendations, to distinguish the Nunatsiavut government as an allocation holder. That's who we always reference in our recommendations. There is a corporation called the Torngat Fish Producers Co-op, for example, that has a licence.

Fisheries committee  I wouldn't mind making one comment. I'm not sure who you'll invite as witnesses—the whole group—but it would probably be beneficial if the Nunatsiavut government themselves were witnesses and shared their perspective. It is a bit confusing, I guess, how this board is not the Nunatsiavut government.

Fisheries committee  Only to make a quick point, for us as the board, it's not our government, I should say. The appointees are made up by the three governments. The appointees are made up of some residents from the area, some ex-DFO management people, and so on. It's only a quick point. I can reread the point of the land claim agreement, and this has been under dispute between—

Fisheries committee  Clearly not.

Fisheries committee  It's 3.7%, and we've illustrated that in the map. While the area is roughly 30%—

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  In area 4, certainly, we feel there's still less of a concern. I don't know if Aaron wants to comment on it.

Fisheries committee  Yes, in part. Again, I'll just keep reiterating, because sometimes we get confused with the government itself, of the Nunatsiavut—

Fisheries committee  It is. But since 2008 the numbers I provided show there have been 4,650 metric tons of allocation, so that's a lot of opportunity when the resource is on the way up.

Fisheries committee  From the numbers that I provided, only 300 of that went to the Nunatsiavut government; 1,700 tonnes went toward the northern science research fund, and then the remaining was split 90:10 under existing sharing principles. I don't know if you can figure out the math, but 300 tonnes out of 4,600 tonnes was a very small allocation to the Nunatsiavut government, with a land claim agreement and a treaty in place, and being adjacent.

Fisheries committee  Well, that's the area where they've disputed with the Nunatsiavut government. At minimum, you would expect them to be at 11% participation in the fishery. They're at 3.37%. The board's view is that they don't feel that the land claim agreement was intended to be in any way a limiting document, so that's why their recommendations have always been to allocate 75% to the Nunatsiavut government to increase their participation.

Fisheries committee  I could make a brief comment on that. The board, as I mentioned, was created by the three governments, but it has a very modest research budget. I can't even call it modest, really, in comparison with the DFO research budget. We often have DFO present to us on the science. We don't add to it that much, frankly.

Fisheries committee  There's no doubt that's an area that, on the marine side, hasn't been as prevalent in the analysis. We, as a secretariat, actually do work for another board in the land claim agreement, which is related to wildlife and plants. That's considered much more. There's a lot more. That being said, the board recently initiated a local knowledge program with fishers and did its first interviews this year.

Fisheries committee  There's no doubt there is a lot of seals. In all of our conversations, it hasn't come up a lot in the context of the shrimp fishery, to be honest. So we were interested to hear DFO's comments as well. Certainly those come up regularly, though, with other species that we're involved with, such as the polar bear population, which is also benefiting from the number of seals.

Fisheries committee  But I have to say that from a traditional knowledge perspective, I haven't been part of much discussion in relation to shrimp.