Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that the member is the chair of the committee, but I could not disagree more with his comment that an inquiry would kneecap the work of the committee. This is something that could happen concurrently. If we actually want to get some results, some action, I would argue that this has to be done. It could be done at the same time that the committee is doing its work.
I was the fisheries critic and the vice chair of the committee as far back as 1998. I was reading through some of the old reports. Report after report after report of the fisheries committee talk about the mismanagement of the fishery time and time again. The vast majority of the reports contained all-party recommendations. There was no dissenting opinion. Five political parties had written the recommendations yet they were not implemented.
The Liberal government has not followed any of the recommendations. Maybe if we had done a judicial inquiry back then on the collapse of the east coast fisheries we would have seen different results today.
That is why it is important that we go down this road. This is a serious problem. Sometimes in this House it takes the work of the Auditor General, it takes a judicial inquiry, and it takes independent work by an all-party committee before we even begin to see any kind of action.
I would suggest to the member that this absolutely does not kneecap the committee's work. In fact it might bolster it.