I will leave to the member's own interpretation as to whether or not I am speaking about wildlife because he knows his colleagues much better than I do, but I assure him we are not too far from the topic.
Concentrating on the bill itself, when I was growing up in Newfoundland, some years after my distinguished colleague for Bonavista—Trinity—Conception, it was still at a time when there seemed to be an abundance of everything. As a youth we would spend our evenings on the wharves. We could stand there looking at the eels and small cod fish that swam right into the harbours and by the wharves. We used our trolling poles to try to catch them.
It is now almost impossible to find codfish in Newfoundland. During the recent recreational fishery that we had in the areas where for years there was an abundance we did not see any at all. Luckily some bay stocks still exist. Perhaps, if we are very careful, they will regenerate the growth that is necessary for the fishery to rebuild. However with the lack of scientific information that is a major concern.
One morning when I was teaching school I was driving toward the community where I taught. I stopped by the roadside to look at a small fishing area just off the coast. I counted 127 boats fishing a very lucrative area within a mile of the coast. In this one small place the codfish were so plentiful that there were 127 boats. When I talk about boats I am talking about boats from 20 feet to 40 feet, not big draggers but small inshore fishing boats. This fall during late August and September, which should be prime fishing time, no one could find one codfish on that same ground. It just shows what happens when we are not careful about protecting species that can easily be destroyed.
The country behind most of our rural communities always abounded in ducks, beaver, muskrat, moose, caribou and dedicated wildlife officials. Perhaps no thanks at all to the governments as such but to the wildlife officials, they took it upon themselves to make sure that the herds were protected. We still have in many cases an abundance of wildlife in Newfoundland.
I suggest to my colleague from Bonavista—Trinity—Conception that perhaps in this great country of ours Newfoundland can be looked upon as the last frontier. It is rapidly becoming a tourist destination for many people from within and outside the country. In particular we are drawing a lot of tourists from Europe, simply because of the habitats that still exist exuding different types of wildlife whether it be animal or plant varieties. It is providing a tremendous attraction for people who appreciate these things and who come from far away countries just to see them.
Where else in the country can we fly into the capital city as we can into St. John's, Newfoundland, and drive in a circular direction for four hours and see herds of caribou grazing on the side of the roads and see whales—