Mr. Speaker, for years tensions have been escalating over who has the right to participate in the lobster fishery.
The historic 1990 Sparrow decision recognized the rights of aboriginal people to conduct a food fishery. This important supreme court decision should have forewarned the federal government of the likely success of further aboriginal challenges based on the 1760 treaties.
It would seem to me and most Canadians to be totally incomprehensible that the Liberal government would not have had an alternative strategy prepared in advance to respond to the recent supreme court ruling in the Donald Marshall Jr. decision.
The Liberal government had well over six years to prepare for any possible supreme court verdict and the fact that it was ill prepared for the violent reactions that were witnessed within New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland is nothing less than a dereliction of its duties.
The federal fisheries minister has a duty to protect the industry and as such the future livelihoods of both native and non-native fishers. His failure to act decisively and impose new regulations that would address the supreme court decision has led directly to the violence we witnessed over the past few weeks.