Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member from Quebec and the parliamentary secretary for fisheries for bringing the issues of the Quebec region to Parliament, because in a lot of cases we think about Atlantic fisheries and we think of the four Atlantic provinces. In many cases we inadvertently do not discuss the issues of Quebec, the Îles-de-la-Madeleine and those issues, for example.
Being the only one from Nova Scotia participating in tonight's debate, apart from the Minister of Fisheries, what I would like to ask him is this. We know that DFO science and research have been cut drastically. We know that the budget did not address that issue. What suggestion would he and his party make to the government to address this serious issue?
We know that whatever information is gathered now will only be helpful down the road. The reality is that we need that information now. We simply do not have it. We have an awful lot of people out there who can give us the information if we would just allow them to access the resources that are required and to work in a co-operative, co-management way in order to deal with the issues of, for example, environmental concerns, ice floes, seals, and dragging, et cetera. I would like him to comment on that, please.