Mr. Speaker, I listened with great interest to the speech of my hon. colleague from Gaspé. Being myself a former employee of the marine fisheries branch in Gaspé, I know that the Quebec fishing industry is operating under dynamics very different from those in the west, for example, or even in the Atlantic provinces.
Fisheries are very important in concerned areas like the Gaspé peninsula, the North Shore, Magdalen Islands, all that area. They are also a small part of Quebec economy. Therefore special management is called for.
Looking at the bill, I am a little surprised because, from 1922 until 1984, there was a delegation agreement. Under that agreement, the federal government had delegated fisheries management to Quebec. In 1984, the minister of the day, Pierre De Bané, who now sits in the other place, decided-in a fit of anger, I believe-to withdraw that delegation. That shows the strength these administrative delegations have.
I would like to ask the hon. member for Gaspé whether it does not seem to him that the delegation of powers found in the bill has a needlessly complicated air about it. They want to give the provinces the power to issue permits and licences, but then, if I understand correctly, it will be the federal government that will enter into the resource management and protection agreements directly with the industry. The impression I get from this is that we will end up with the same squabbles as before, which may have been behind the withdrawal of the delegation set out in the 1922 agreement.
I would like to ask a question of my colleague from Gaspé: Does he not think that this piece of legislation will be a source of new conflict and will only feed the bureaucrats implementing it without meeting the needs of fishers, especially those in Quebec who are a little lost in the great Canadian whole as for the choices that are made?