Mr. Speaker, a recently released study conducted by an international group of fisheries scientists has revealed that fish stocks are in decline and that fishing fleets in the North Atlantic must be seriously reduced if depleted fish stocks are ever to recover.
Many of these stocks are within Canadian waters. Others are within the waters we should manage, such as the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap.
It is time for the government to show some leadership in addressing this problem and to show some intestinal fortitude by unilaterally extending management control over these regions which are really extensions of our continental shelf. Unfortunately, we have not learned from past experience. As the old saying goes, those who fail to learn from the past are doomed to repeat it.
If the fishery dies, then much of rural Canada will die as well. That is not a legacy any of us want to leave.