Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my friend for bringing this motion forward. The issue is actually quite a simple one. The fishery was closed in 1992 because of a serious depletion of the cod stocks. That is the simple fact of the matter. The fear then was that the stocks were close to extinction. What we have now, 10 years later, is not a recovery. There is no recovery in the stocks. In fact, scientists will tell us that the stocks may be even more seriously depleted now than they were when the moratorium was brought forward. The situation that faced the committee was how to respond to the declining numbers of stocks when the fishery had been closed for 10 years.
Back in the mid-1990s the committee met, discussed the issue and suggested to the government at that time that it take more severe action and a more aggressive stance in defending the fish. What we have seen since then is a heavy reliance on NAFO and on the procedures that are inherent in that organization. The fact of the matter is there has been a complete failure by NAFO to act in a responsible way and to ensure that its member states are obeying the law. All this has occurred at a time when the Canadian fleet has been tied up to the wharves to protect the fish within our 200 mile limit.
As the House knows full well, fish cannot pick out the picket fence at the end of the 200 mile limit, so they freely cross back and forth through these international waters. It is no good for the Canadian fleet to be tied up when the communities in Newfoundland will suffer if there are fishermen who are illegally exercising their option to pursue the fishery at will outside the 200 mile limit.
The issue here was how to protect those stocks, not just the stocks of the nose and tail of the Grand Bank but all of the stocks which freely cross into the 200 mile economic zone of Canada. That was the dilemma that faced the committee.
We have tried the NAFO issue. Canada is being marginalized in NAFO. The member states do not want to pay attention to us. They do not understand the real concerns that we have, not just in furthering our own interests but in protecting the fisheries resource. That is the issue behind custodial management. Canada is not just saying that it will take this over lock, stock and barrel and claim the water column for its own. We are saying that we want custodial management to protect the fisheries resource for all user groups, those with an historical attachment to it.
I would like my friend from Cumberland—Colchester to respond to that very clear issue and statement of the fisheries committee that the intention is to preserve the fish for all nations that want to harvest it and that have been harvesting it for so many hundreds of years.