Fisheries committee  The first recommendation would obviously be the support of this committee in our request for an audit of the management of the fisheries by the Auditor General. I think that would be a very useful exercise. The other one that would be very useful and practical is this idea of a task force--and you used a good word, Madame O'Neill--on the whole scientific process and assessment of the snow crab in the southern gulf, with the very strong involvement of industry in that process.

Fisheries committee  Basically, here, it's a very easy principle, and it is within the policy framework of the Atlantic fishery within the department. You can establish a process, a schedule, whereby the last people who come into the fishery are welcome in the fishery when the commercial biomass can sustain them, and at a certain threshold--it could be economic, it could be a biomass threshold, or it could be in conjunction with the precautionary approach system--they are asked to leave the fishery.

Fisheries committee  I want to specify this very clearly. We were involved in the establishment of the precautionary approach, but in the precautionary approach there were two aspects. We suggested an approach that was precautionary, but at the same time we indicated, and science indicated, to DFO that in order for the precautionary approach to work, the managers had to balance fishing capacity with resource availability.

Fisheries committee  That's a question I'm happy to answer. The best example happened last year. The snow crab stock behaves weirdly from time to time. That happened in 2001 and again last year. The crab stock was scattered. It was scattered in small groups across the southern gulf. That made it a very interesting stock, but extremely hard to fish, Mr.

Fisheries committee  Yes. We never said the cycle didn't decline. We're not claiming the cycle doesn't decline; it declines. I simply want to finish. Last year, when they did the survey, they did it with their trawl in the same scattered biomass. So they found less crab, just as the crab fisherman had found less.

Fisheries committee  I'll answer your question in two ways. First, we and the departmental scientists don't have the same reading or the same fears about the crab stocks in the southern gulf. For a number of years, we've been telling the department what we see, and that's fortunate because we've always said that, if there's enough crab, that's fine, because, in that case, the entire industry can survive.

Fisheries committee  Okay. That's basically it. Sorry.

Fisheries committee  This was the formula that we favoured and that existed between 1995 and 2002. There was sharing when the stock and the viability of the industry could sustain it. When the stock was going down, the viability was going down. The last-in, first-out principle was applied, and the new entrants were not part of it.

Fisheries committee  Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for inviting us to address you. First of all, I'm a fisheries consultant. The name of my firm is Services-conseils STF Consulting Inc. My services are being retained by the Association des crabiers acadiens. This morning, I'm speaking on behalf of that association and on behalf of the very large majority of the 150 traditional crab fishermen in area 12.