Fisheries committee  It was only for a year or two. Also, rationalization was supposed to give us more time on the water, not off the water. I'm now down to one third of what I had. That rationalization is not working. It didn't work. To be cut down to one third of what you had back then, when this w

Fisheries committee  That's correct.

Fisheries committee  Yes, I do, because I was side by side.... If it weren't for me, he wouldn't have invested. I was his son coming up and I was skippering his boat, and we needed fish to catch to—

Fisheries committee  Those were the interactions with.... Actually, DFO had a policy in place that if you didn't have shrimp gear bought by a certain date—and you had to have it bought and show receipts—you couldn't get this licence. They put a deadline there, so we had to jump and buy the gear and b

Fisheries committee  Exactly, and it came just after the moratorium. This was the fishery that was supposed to take the place of the moratorium, and if this fishery worked out, it would be turned into permanent licences.

Fisheries committee  Exactly.

Fisheries committee  Yes.

Fisheries committee  Well, it's $2 million in licences and debt to stay in the fishery and to rationalize. The payment per year is $214,000.

Fisheries committee  But this is today. This is not 1997. This is 2014 and I have a permanent licence that I'm having taken away from me.

Fisheries committee  Yes, it was my father before me. I fished with him and skippered his boat, but he got the initial licence at that time.

Fisheries committee  No. It was a big cry.... It was basically the government of the day saying that it was the way we had to go because of the moratorium, the downfall of the Greenland halibut, the codfish, the moratorium.... We had to diversify, and this was the start of diversification. I want t

Fisheries committee  No. They were turned into permanent licences, sir, and that's what I hold today, a permanent licence. It's not a permit anymore. They were turned.... It was deemed that the shrimp stocks were strong enough, and we did get licences. We have permanent licences now, not temporary.

Fisheries committee  That is correct.

Fisheries committee  Right now, with the quota cuts that we just got again this spring in 3K, I'm going to start operating in the red in this year, and I have 1,200—that's one thousand, two hundred—other enterprises in Newfoundland in the same situation. They're going to be in the red this year becau

Fisheries committee  I don't have a lot of time either, I guess, but I did pass around my business card with my number and email address, and I'd appreciate hearing from anybody who has any questions, because I have a lot to say. We've been years trying to get up here to speak on the mess in the fish