To the subamendment and the 15 days and the crisis.... No, I'm not going to use that word, because we're not there yet, but we're teetering on a crisis in the fishing industry.
Mr. Allen, to your point a little earlier about getting industry to foot the full bill for this, I think we have to be realistic, looking at the fishing industry right now. Even though the industry partners in CCFI have come a long way in the last number of years in funding this organization and in being in partnership with this organization, with the lobster industry the way it is now, finding industries to come on board at this particular moment in time and expecting them to carry more weight with the CCFI I don't think is very practical.
You look at the crab industry in Newfoundland right now. We have three processors that are saying that they're not buying crab anymore. We are teetering on some major, major problems within the fishery industry in general. And for an institute that has worked with industry, timing is very important. We should not turn our backs on that. When we want to look at timing, a year's full funding, two years, three years, well, maybe we could have that debate.
The second part of my point is, being new to politics, I don't think it's very responsible for any of us to be misleading and to build false hope. I think by changing this to talk about reconsidering, we're building false hope out there. For some reason, if we reconsider, your government will actually do something to change it. That's what I'm seeing here today. You seem intent on putting in the word “reconsider”. Unless you guys know something we don't, come clean. Come clean with us right now. To say that you don't know anything.... You've spoken to your colleagues on this. Well, it seems to me that we may be trying to mislead or to bring false hope.
Well, listen then, if you don't know any more than we know, why are we reconsidering? We know that the department has said no, so we know that reconsidering isn't going to do anything. Let's move forward and put this motion forward and let whichever department of government step up to the plate and participate with CCFI.