Mr. Chairman, I too, on behalf of our party, wish to congratulate the member from Scarborough for his election as chairperson of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.
For the record, we are a committee made up of five political parties that works cooperatively together and is extremely apolitical. I must give the member from Scarborough a lot of credit. A lot of people have asked me, “You have a member from Scarborough on your fisheries committee, what does he know about fish?”
Well I have watched him work very diligently, and although he admitted he did not know the difference between a seiner and a trawler, the fact is that he is willing to learn, he is willing to understand and he is willing to ask the difficult questions when they need to be asked in a respectful but tactful and direct manner by cutting through the bush.
The member was in Tofino. He rightfully talked about the Strait of Juan de Fuca and how busy that traffic system was. We heard Mr. Henderson say in Vancouver that money was not a problem. We heard the people in Tofino say something completely different.
With his experience in bureaucratic bafflegab, why would the manager in charge of the Coast Guard on the west coast make such a bold statement in front of all of us, but when we went to Tofino we heard the workers and the managers there say something completely different? Why would that person say such a thing? I would like him to reflect upon that for a moment.