Mr. Speaker, last week I raised a question with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. I did not agree with his answer and of course we have the right to put such complaints on the late show and get our chance to discuss them in more detail.
Unfortunately what happens quite often is that the minister to whom we want to speak and from whom we want to try to elicit answers does not show up to defend himself. He or she sends in some parliamentary secretary with a prepared response, sometimes with no connection to the question.
However, this evening I notice that we do have a parliamentary secretary, the member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac, who is familiar with the situation and that makes a bit of a difference. I accept the member being here to respond on behalf of the minister as I know the minister is busy and because the member for Beauséjour—Petitcodiac is on our Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, has been there for quite some time and is knowledgeable about what we are talking about here.
However, I suggest to him that when I finish my couple of minutes, instead of reading for me the response the minister's department gave him, I want him to throw it out and give us some feeling of what he thinks about the situation.
The question I raised with the minister concerned the shutdown of the Atlantic cod fishery, particularly in the northern and southern gulf and the northeast coast of Newfoundland and Labrador. I basically asked the minister why he did not listen to the people.
Every politician in Newfoundland, including the government led by the premier, the opposition led by the opposition leader, the NDP, its leader and other member, the senators from Newfoundland, all the MPs from Newfoundland and just about every agency that I am aware of, came together and submitted one report to the minister on what he should do in relation to the fishery. That was before he made his decision.
The chair of that committee when it first started was the minister responsible for ACOA. The report was unanimous, something that never happened before in the history of Newfoundland and Labrador, I suppose, and might never happen again. The group suggested to the minister better ways of addressing the declining stocks rather than just closing the fishery and throwing out a handful of goodies.
Did the minister listen? Did the minister come up with a concrete plan? Did the minister try to involve all those affected? The answer is no. He closed the fishery and tried to give them a handful of goodies.
This is not acceptable. It is not a matter of us saying that we should not address declining stocks. Absolutely, we should have addressed them long ago, and if we had had a joint management board where we had some management at the local level we probably would have and could have.
However, it did not happen and we are in a serious situation. The issue has to be addressed, but our main concern is that we should be involving those directly affected in a positive, proactive way, not in a negative way. We should not be telling them to get out of the fishery and saying, “Here are Canada Works programs”. Let us involve them in science research. Let us address the seal situation. Let us address the foreign overfishing. Let us address the bycatch. Let us deal with all the issues and not just tell some fishermen, “You can't fish. Here is a handful of goodies, now be satisfied”. It does not work that way.
There has to be a better approach. Collectively we can find it, but not if the minister is going to make a decision and say that is it.