Madam Speaker, I had an opportunity to travel through the city of Dauphin. It was the first time I realized that it was in the interlake area.
I dare not compare the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board to the Canadian Wheat Board. Freshwater fish have to be fresh. We cannot wait for fish to go to market. Wheat and other grains can wait. We see silos and holding elevators all over the prairie provinces. These containers can hold their grains for months on end, but we cannot hold fish. It has to be fresh.
The most delicate fish is pickerel. It is the best fish to be eaten, right out of the lake, into the frying pan. If we buy it in markets it is drowned fish. My uncle, who is a professional fisherman, tells us that.
Fresh fish is not governed by the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board. That is frozen fish. It is like McCain's fish and chips in the store. That is not the nutritional fish that comes from our lakes.
We cannot compare the Canadian Wheat Board to the Freshwater Fish Marketing Board. That is all I can say. There is no comparison. The federal control that the hon. member was referring to is a whole different thing. When we talk about freshwater fish, let us keep it fresh. Let us sell it as directly as we can to the markets. Let us bring the processing plants back to those little communities. The processing jobs, the jobs of the people who fileted the fish, who gutted the fish in our little plants, all went to Transcona. It is a sad fact. There could have been one or two jobs in Williston Lake, which has a community of 200 people.