Mr. Speaker, there is no doubt that she has struck on a very critical point, that is, our ability to patrol our coastal waters. We simply lost that over the years. We do not have the vessels and the capability to adequately patrol our coastal waters.
I know my friend has long supported the notion that Canada should build those replacement vessels in Canada. I do not think there would be too much argument about that in this place. We need to have a shipbuilding program in this country because we simply need vessels, not just coast guard vessels and fisheries vessels to do these patrols, but naval vessels to maintain our sovereignty off our coast.
The issue today is about the fishery on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. In that regard we need to commit the resources to policing the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. That means the acquisition of new and additional vessels to allow the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to do the kind of surveillance that it needs to do.
My friend also mentioned the issue of the seals. I cannot emphasize enough how important it is to deal with that issue. I know seals are pretty to the folks from the cities. They see the little white pups on the ice and think they are cute. I grant that they are cute and that they have pretty brown eyes but the fact is that they do grow up and eat a lot of fish. They are also wasteful eaters. They do not lick their plate clean. They take a bite and move on to the next one. That is a serious problem. There needs to be a balance in nature. We harvest the fish and rightly so but we should be harvesting the seals.
The issue of the illegal fishing by NAFO nations and the ignoring of the moratorium has to be dealt with. There is no question that it is incumbent on the government to deal with that issue in a timely fashion if we are going to save the fish stocks.