Mr. Speaker, today the minister claims to be shutting down the lobster fishery on Miramichi Bay for conservation reasons. Yesterday he was offering fishermen on the Miramichi $12,000 to turn a blind eye to illegal fishing on the bay.
Rather than protecting the resource and shutting down the fisheries, the minister chose what he thought was the path of least resistance: hush money, paying fishermen to look the other way while the lobster resource is under attack, while the viability of their fishery is jeopardized and while illegal fishing continues unabated. How can he justify this distasteful offer?