Mr. Speaker, I listened very closely to my colleague from the Reform Party.
I know my colleague from the Reform Party has just been to Atlantic Canada, but there is an old saying that a little bit of knowledge can be very dangerous. I know they feel they know Atlantic Canada, but I can assure this House that we have members who know it very well, are well informed and can advise us on the issue.
Let me first make a few statements. The member should go back to the budget, which outlined the cost initiatives. Obviously his party did not look at the budget very closely, because some of the
issues in terms of cost recovery were already indicated in the 1995 budget. They should go back to that. Obviously they did not read that part.
In the second part, in terms of the headquarters, that is where the biggest cuts are coming. Once again they should go back to the budget, because the headquarters are going to be cut by 26 per cent when the average cuts in the department are only 16 per cent.
Let me also ask the member a question in terms of his position on the licensing fee. Our main resources are a public resource. As a public resource, certain people have beneficial privileges to that resource. Should the fisherperson who catches or lands $10,000 worth of fish and pays $30 for a licence pay the same fee as those individuals who have a landing value of $1 million? Should they pay the same licence fee of $30 when they are taking out of a public resource that belongs to all Canadians? This government has said that those who take the most out of the public resource should pay a little more. This is only common sense.
The Reform Party always talks about user pay. They want to have user pay for all those people who go to the doctor. All this is saying is that if you are taking a huge amount of a public resource then you should pay based on how much you benefit from that public resource. I think all Canadians and all members from Atlantic Canada would support that view.