Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the concern of the member from the south shore of my beautiful province of Nova Scotia. Many of the fishermen in these communities we are talking about are in his riding.
I have spent an awful lot of time on the phone in the last few days talking to fishermen and representatives in the hon. member's riding. A lot of them have said that possibly for the short term in terms of a solution to incorporate the aboriginal people into the fishery is a sort of voluntary buy-back program. There are 6,300 licences in the maritime provinces right now that incorporate lobster fishing. Of those, roughly 10% belong to people who would voluntarily exit the industry if they got a decent price for their licences.
Would the hon. member not agree that could be a short term solution as we work toward a long term goal? The government could purchase these licences, transfer them over to the Mi'kmaw nation and everyone could fish under the same conservation guidelines.