Mr. Speaker, if the government cannot find the report or an answer maybe it will find a conscience.
Yesterday the minister of fisheries denied the town of Canso quota needed to keep the Seafreez plant operating. Without that plant the town may die. The decision by the minister was a devastating blow to one of the oldest fishing ports in Canada. In his letter the minister said that access to redfish “would be contrary to Canada's international stance that this stock is being overfished”. Yet tonnes of that redfish are still in the water.
How can the Nova Scotia minister and his government deny access to a fish resource to save the very existence of a town, while ignoring the massive overfishing of Canadian fish stocks by foreign vessels?