Fisheries committee  Thank you for the question. In the immediate sense, with lost product, market-ready product, obviously that's gone. That's therefore going to impact the markets. The majority of the shellfish produced on P.E.I. is exported, certainly from the province and in a lot of cases from

Fisheries committee  Yes, in terms of the seed or spat for the mussel and oyster industry.... For those who are unfamiliar, juveniles are collected from the open water for shellfish aquaculture. There are hatcheries, but they're certainly a very small proportion of the seed that is collected. Those

Fisheries committee  The potential exists for there to be product shortages, as I said. P.E.I. is the largest producer of mussels in North America. We farm approximately 80% of the mussels produced in North America. Both mussels and oysters are very popular. They are very widely known as quality prod

Fisheries committee  In terms of the wharves, I can't really speak to them directly. Our members do use small craft harbour wharves and other launch points that are administered by the provincial government. It's great that some funding has been assigned towards the development and future-proofing of

Fisheries committee  I referred to existing programs, such as the Canadian agricultural partnership program, which has been established for quite some time. We feel that since these are programs for farming operations, many of them would translate very well to the aquaculture industry, which, as I me

Fisheries committee  I would say there definitely is some anxiety. The need for immediate financial assistance is there, especially for some of our members, whose lease infrastructure was completely destroyed. In some areas, we have not just partial damage but also leases that were torn away complete

Fisheries committee  It's not that other jurisdictions have necessarily future-proofed more effectively, it's just that they are already operating in conditions which potentially we're going to have to operate in given the potential impacts of climate change. Certainly as we're looking at warmer wate

Fisheries committee  I think the industry is going to need to be supported in redeveloping their infrastructure. As I mentioned in my opening statement, there are thousands and thousands of dollars invested by owner-operators, small businesses, in their sites and leases already. With what was done

Fisheries committee  —reasonably timely manner. We don't know how long it's going be until the next one of these once-in-a-century storms comes along.

Fisheries committee  I think there's a lot of work to be done in terms of looking at aquaculture in other parts of the world, and in other parts of Canada as well, where farming is done in deeper waters, in rougher waters, and with heavier engineering. Obviously, building back better is something tha

Fisheries committee  I would hesitate to put an exact number on where I think that figure will end up. We have responses from about 85 members, I believe, so I could anticipate that to creep up around the $80-million mark, potentially. In terms of what we need to survive, I think in the immediate se

Fisheries committee  My understanding is that there's still some uncertainty as to what exactly will be covered by the program. We are now working through the process of helping our members with their Red Cross applications. I'm not aware of anyone actually completing that process as of yet.

Fisheries committee  For some members, I think it's fairly high, yes.

Fisheries committee  No, not at all.

Fisheries committee  I think the program itself could be very similar to the existing provincial disaster financial assistance program. It just needs to be made eligible for the larger companies. I believe the existing program is designed to address the needs of smaller companies, hence the limitatio