Mr. Speaker, I draw to your attention the Order Paper and Notice Paper of October 6 of this year. The first question on the order paper in the House was by the member for New Brunswick Southwest, yours truly, in regard to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans licence buy-out program.
The point I want to make, and I was up about a week ago on this same issue, is that my questions are now two Parliaments old. The ministry was aware of these questions back on April 15.
We have gone through an election. The government has had several months to answer those questions. I know the parliamentary secretary will get up and say that there is a 45 day period, but that is totally unacceptable. When he stood in his place a couple of weeks ago with respect to the same question that I put today, he made a commitment that he and the department would get back to me to discuss the answering of those questions and why the delay. He has not fulfilled that commitment.
The fact is that we are entitled to answers to those questions. We can only have four questions on the order paper, but when we go through several months, there is something wrong. Why is there a delay in answering those very specific questions on the licence buy-out program?