Madam Chairman, I am certainly not against another assistance package for fishermen who are displaced, if indeed the decision is made. What I am against is the fact that Canadians may question another one and they may want to know what is going on. Maybe that is what we need in this country.
This will be the fourth aid package, by the way, for east coast fishermen. Eventually the taxpayers of Canada are going to ask some questions.
My fear is that the aid package will maybe assist the fishermen and their families in a minimal way but it will not assist their communities. For example, when fishermen make money they spend the money in their community. What will help that community? What will assist the hardware store, the grocery store, the gas station or the outport community? What will help them? Will they be compensated? They were not the last time.
My fear is that the government will just look at the fishermen not at the community. As it has done repeatedly, it will go back to the province and download that responsibility to the province of Newfoundland and Labrador for example, and that is unacceptable. These people do not want an aid package. They want to work. They want to fish. We believe if it is done sustainably they should be fishing.
We go over this again and again. The problem lies within the top of DFO. It is not the fishermen and their families who are causing the problem. It is the management of DFO and it goes on and on.
Are we going to be here four years from now and debate this again? More than likely we will. When will it change? Unanimous report after unanimous report by our committee and many others and the government ignores them.
The absolute worst thing the government did just recently, after it had talked about the fragility of the stocks, how precious the stocks were, how conservation and the precautionary principles were the number one mantra, and it allowed dragging in the gulf after a 10 year moratorium.
My question to any of the government members, and I love it when they get up: Why did they allow dragging at this very sensitive time? It is unconscionable.