I was thinking of saying the same thing. The infrastructure is at the root of the problem. In our municipality in particular, we are having serious problems both in the Percé wharf as well as that in Saint-Georges-de-Malbaie—namely in Saint-Georges-de-Malbaie, where in fact there is a great deal of fishing activity. The wharves are in a very bad state of repair. We must therefore start at the root, that is to say with the infrastructure, and try in catch up in terms of their maintenance.
Obviously I hope that the budgets for research and development, for licence buy-backs and the rest of it will not be cut back. Those budgets are currently in place right now. The main idea is to ensure that the federal government will increase the budget for maintenance of infrastructures.
Majella and I mentioned this earlier on. There is a municipal by-law, a nuisance by-law, that can oblige a regular citizen who is not maintaining his house to maintain his facilities.
Nevertheless, we must not be pushed to have to undertake that kind of initiative with the federal government, even though we are practically at that point. Last year, I had to intervene personally on the Saint-Georges-de-Malbaie issue so that the fishermen could launch their season. They started the season three or four days late. For the fishermen, the first three or four days are the most important. As a result, this community had to absorb a significant loss because of Fisheries and Oceans Canada closing the wharf.
As far as the structure is concerned, we have an enormous amount of catching up to do. That is where the effort must be made.