He gave them our turbot. He gave away the sovereign rights of Canada. We did not have the fortitude to go the distance and take on the nations that continue to overfish.
The day will come when we will not be talking about cod stocks in this place because they simply will not exist. We will not have to be concerned about the Russians coming into some of the areas just off the 200 mile limit to overfish our cod because there will simply be nothing there for them to fish. The problem is that serious.
We have to have the strength and fortitude to exercise our rights as international citizens. Canada is the laughing stock of these countries because they can get away with overfishing here.
This debate is timely. It is ironic in a way because we have gone through it before. It is reminiscent of the early 1990s.
I do not want to sit down until I take the Prime Minister to task on the softwood lumber dispute. There has been some comparison in that it is a renewable natural resource. The Americans again are making a laughing stock out of Canada. The Prime Minister made a mistake on this file by not accepting the fact that there are international trade rules and international tribunals that have consistently ruled on Canada's side in relation to the bogus charges brought on by the Americans in relation to the importation of softwood lumber into the United States. The Prime Minister is simply negotiating away our rights under NAFTA and the WTO. It does not make any sense.
Some Newfoundlanders compare the softwood lumber dispute to overfishing. There is somewhat of a comparison. The commonality between the two files is the weakness and lack of leadership on the part of the Government of Canada.
When we get into these disputes we have to depend on the leadership of the government and the office of the Prime Minister to do something. No longer can we be polite Canadians and simply ignore what is going on because of the possibility that we may fall into disfavour with certain nations around the world that are intent on destroying our resource. We have to do more.
The member for South Shore said yesterday in the House of Commons that we do not have enough fisheries officers and we do not have enough patrol vessels and we do not have enough aircraft.
If we are going to protect our resource, we have to put resources into protecting the very fish being exploited. We need the officers. We need the enforcement tools. We have to do something. We cannot procrastinate this problem away as the government often does. In other words, if we wait long enough the problem will disappear on its own. Sadly in this case that is probably what will happen, but the problem will not disappear, it will simply be the fish.
A few years back a minister of fisheries said that he was not the minister of fisheries, but he was the minister of fish. He said he was there to protect the resource. Unfortunately that minister did not protect the resource, but he was absolutely right in saying that if there are no fish, there are no fishermen.
It is time for the government to take action. It is time for it to do something. The time is now. The Prime Minister will have our support in terms of going into any negotiations that will put a stop to overfishing in Canada and offshore Canada. It is simply stealing jobs away from all Canadians. It is taking away our future as Canadians.