Fisheries committee  I'm not going to say everything's perfect, but I will say, as I mentioned before, we don't use observers. We are not relying on observers as our key compliance tool. We're relying on Canadian fishery officers and we're spending money, as you're aware, to keep officers in the NAFO

Fisheries committee  That has been a problem in the past. There's nothing in terms of UNCLOS that would prevent somebody from coming forward and fishing in the NAFO regulatory area, as long as they're cooperating with the organization. Having said that, the presence of NCPs, non-contracting parties

Fisheries committee  In the past, we've had vessels re-flag, whether it's Spanish, Icelandic, whatever. So they'd re-flag to Belize or to a flag of convenience. Canada spent a lot of time on talking with those countries to make sure there was a connection between the flag and the vessel so that they

Fisheries committee  I've got to be quite frank that we aren't putting much weight on international observer reports at this point. We're relying on data from satellite systems, air surveillance, observed tows by fishery officers, and extrapolation of those tows based on days on ground. We have a ver

Fisheries committee  In my opinion, NAFO is more effective now. Countries have learned that they need to change their behaviour as far as fisheries management is concerned. In the past, Spain, the other countries and even Canada continued to fish a much too high volume of fish, even if there had been

Fisheries committee  There are observers on board.

Fisheries committee  Yes, except Norway hires Canadians, and some of the others are also looking at that, but—

Fisheries committee  One must admit that NAFO failed as far as overfishing of cod in the North is concerned. Unfortunately, the same thing must be said regarding fisheries management in Canada. We had problems with the cod fishery in the Gulf of St. Lawrence as well as in Nova Scotia. That is why we

Fisheries committee  In my opinion, NAFO is becoming more effective, because we have far less a foreign fishery, therefore more compliance with regulations. Also, we have seen an increase in the population of certain species of fish. For example, the populations of yellowtail, cod and redfish are inc

Fisheries committee  In a sense, that already's in there, because if you look at--

Fisheries committee  Here's the issue. In the application inside the zone, it would have to be at our request and with our agreement. We would have to want it, ask for it, and vote yes to it.

Fisheries committee  I would point out that in the past, prior to the changes at NAFO--in behaviour, at least--that took place back in the 1990s, we won all the votes and lost all the fish. That's a reality. We paid with fish to get the votes, and then when we won the votes, because of the convention

Fisheries committee  Are you suggesting that Canada would try to write into an international treaty the right to unilaterally impose anything we want on people outside the 200-mile limit, on the high seas?

Fisheries committee  No, we didn't. That's not what we did.

Fisheries committee  I absolutely--