Mr. Speaker, perhaps with your good graces, seeing that neither the Leafs or the Canadiens are playing tonight and you are not in a rush and I am not in rush, we could extend this debate. However, perhaps you would not agree with that.
The decision make by the minister does not help the fishers of Newfoundland and Labrador. It does not help anyone.
Nobody is helped by the decision that the minister made. It is a quick fix for the department. If the minister had said, “We are going to close or cut back”, that would have helped. What was asked for was that a partial fishery be kept open. Because while the minister says, “You cannot fish, Mr. Fisherman or Madam Fisherman or Fisherperson”, all he is going to do with the seal herds that are ballooning is to study them for two more years. The government is not going to address foreign overfishing at all; he did not mention it. It is not going to talk about bycatch or directed fisheries or gear types. It is just going to say, “You don't fish”.
If the fishery had been kept open to the point where people could be involved, they could be monitoring what is going on, they could be involved in research, they could be involved in dealing with the seal program, and they could be involved in experimental fishing, and everybody would be happy. The minister would be a hero. It can still be done. The question is, will the minister revisit the decision?