Mr. Speaker, in New Jersey on Thursday of last week I met with a number of people and I visited the Burnt Church reserve a short time later. I made a statement that generally all people are good people but there are people in every group who want to create major problems.
I know that in terms of what happened there, we were unfortunate to have outsiders come to Burnt Church. It was also unfortunate that some of the fishermen did what they did.
On the afternoon in question, members of the MFU and I spoke with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I called him on the phone and he was readily available. We discussed the problem in the presence of the MFU representatives. We said to them that there should be a solution early next week.
That the boats came from outside the constituency on the weekend certainly was a major factor. From that, the Sunday morning episode resulted and then the Sunday night episode shortly after I visited. I was down there that evening from about 6.30 to 7 p.m. and shortly toward dark those vehicles were destroyed. It is a very unfortunate thing, but the point is that it happened and we all have to live with it. Hopefully the minister in the fine efforts he made in the week since has brought some resolution to it. He has met with the 30 chiefs. He certainly had great courage in doing so and I want to commend him for it. He met with the MFU and hopefully we can resolve this.