Madam Speaker, I thank the member for getting the name of my riding correct. The last time he referred to me in the House he called me the member for St. John's South--Pearl Harbour. I know it can be pretty hot at times in St. John's South—Mount Pearl but I have not had to duck any bombs yet.
The member raises a concern about the input from people in Ontario who have expressed a concern with this regulation. I say that maybe he should call home and ask the fishermen in Prince Edward Island what they think about giving the minister the power and the control and, worse still, giving the parliamentary secretary the power to throw them in jail if they do not comply with licences.
I say to the member that I can understand why there is some concern in Ontario about this regulation. It is simply because the Minister of Fisheries has raised the concern thinking that if this is not corrected he will lose complete control over the fishery and it will be unmanageable.
The minister approached the scrutiny of regulations committee with that concern and it is based on that concern that the minister and the department is acting. However the scrutiny of regulations committee said that this concern was not valid, that this would not happen. The same powers to conserve will still be there.
I say to the member that maybe we should look at this in the big picture. Sometimes in order to solve a problem we come up with a mechanism to deal with that but we are creating a bigger problem by doing so.
I have no intention of trying to obstruct my good friend the minister from doing his work. What we are really trying to do here is to keep the minister from getting into greater trouble by changing regulations that will open up the floodgates and give him an even bigger headache than he has at present.