Mr. Speaker, I do not see this as an environmental bill. The push behind it or the driving force may be to protect the marine environment, but it is a bill essentially to create conservation areas.
The federal government is clearly responsible for the ocean below the low water mark. That is the minister's constitutional responsibility. The member is quite correct in that in this day and age we cannot simply march in and have our will prevail. The provinces certainly want a say, and have a right to a say, regarding the waters off their shores and how they want them developed.
My point is that ultimately somebody has to be responsible. The wisdom of the constitution was that it made somebody responsible. That somebody was the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. There was someone we could point the finger at when things went wrong. This bill is going to muddy that. No one is going to be responsible. I think it bodes ill for the fisheries and the fisheries resource.