Mr. Speaker, the junior minister of fisheries and oceans said they went through a consultative process and made great recommendations of which he was a part. If he is so proud of that report and I am wrong in what I am saying in the House, why will he not stand to vote for it in the House? Why will he not stand up for the people of Prince Edward Island, the people of Atlantic Canada, and vote for them in the House today? He will not because he has been ordered not to do so.
He said that I had written a minority report. Yes, I did, on one recommendation, recommendation 10F on the TAGS program after the government spent $2 billion to pay fishermen to sit at home and wait for the fish to come back. I said that was not working and that we should invest some money in the fishery. I have no problem spending money to invest in the fishery to ensure that it comes back. Not everybody agreed with it, but I felt strongly enough that I had to put it on the record with one recommendation, that we would not spend $2 billion of taxpayers' money to pay fishermen to sit at home and wait for the fish to come back.
Let us fix the problem. For five years the government's solution was that the fish were gone. It threw in a couple of billion dollars and hoped the problem would fix itself. The Liberals do not realize that they are the problem. Their own department is the problem. Their minister is the problem. They made no substantive changes to the fishery. The same people who destroyed the Atlantic fishery over the last 20 years are the people who are in charge today. They are the people who are in the process of destroying the west coast fishery.
If the member is so proud of this report, he should stand today to vote for concurrence in the report. He should stand up for the people of Prince Edward Island and all other Atlantic Canadians and show them that you are sincere in your comments.