Fisheries committee  What I was getting at was that when, like you said, the moratorium was in place, at first everyone thought that it was going to work. When we saw that it didn't work, and we were trying to figure out what it was, DFO couldn't really come up with an answer. The fishermen saw what we were seeing and the way things were going, and we realized it.

Fisheries committee  The seal was. I remember the head scientist looking at me. He came and talked to me about it after. He asked if I had really seen this. I said that I would bring him some pictures of it. After that, it seemed the next year that their outlook changed. They realized what they were missing, which was that they were destroying a lot more than just a few small fish.

Fisheries committee  Yes. You are certainly correct.

Fisheries committee  All you have to do is look back to when the moratorium was put on the cod. You saw what happened to the coastal communities in Newfoundland. The exact same thing is going to happen here, because this is what we depend on. These are the last stocks left. There's nothing left besides that.

Fisheries committee  I don't think so. I think maybe they are more now. If you go back a few years ago, when all of this started taking place, no one could really understand what was happening. We had a moratorium in place. The stocks were going to be rebuilt in a few years and everything would be back to normal.

Fisheries committee  Yes, in their stomach contents; the otolith bones and their heads—that was how they identified it. They said they didn't find any large cod. Large cod weren't being eaten. At that time, we spoke up almost simultaneously around the table: “Oh? Well, why are the large cod disappearing off our trawls and our nets?

Fisheries committee  I'm sorry about that.

Fisheries committee  Yes. We're going to split it.

Fisheries committee  Good afternoon, and thanks for the opportunity to be here. I'm Danny Arsenault, representing PEIFA, and Kenneth will be taking over for the last part of this. The overpopulation of seals in Atlantic Canada is a grave concern of ours. It's something that membership and both Ken and I are very passionate about addressing.