Mr. Speaker, we appreciate the openmindedness shown by the hon. member, who said he would carefully consider the amendments put forward by the Bloc Quebecois, when the bill is referred to the Standing Committee.
However, I would like to cast some new light on an issue which is important, considering the amendments we will be moving. Even though we want to protect our territorial waters from overfishing, we cannot prevent our stocks from leaving our territorial waters. If we were to legislate on that, we would soon run out of aquariums to detain the fish which would have ignored our legislation and our territorial limits.
Moreover, outside of our territorial waters, we have no authority whatsoever to stop foreign vessels from fishing. And God knows those vessels come from all over the world! Since we cannot legislate on fish migration, all countries should agree to legislate globally on fishery resource management, because the fish stocks do not belong to one particular country. They do not belong to Canada nor to Quebec. They belong to the sea. And the sea, outside our territorial waters, belongs to everyone. This is why it is so important to pay special attention to the amendments we will put forward in the hope of seeing Canada and Quebec show some leadership in bringing the countries together to develop a better management strategy for this resource which belongs to everyone.