Mr. Speaker, I listened to the remarks of the parliamentary secretary and certainly agree with the thrust of the bill. The parliamentary secretary talked a fair bit about the Marshall decision, the Sparrow court decision and others that have had quite an impact on the regular commercial fishery.
In one of the ports in my riding and in regard to the allocation under the Marshall decision, although it was the right thing to do, and the intent was right, under that intent and after a certain period of time the aboriginal community was supposed to be fishing on its own on the water and not leasing out its operations to allow somebody else to fish. That is not exactly what happened. The fact of the matter is that some leasing is still going on so the full intent has not been exercised.
As well, I have heard a rumour, and I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could tell me whether the rumour is right or wrong. The rumour was that there would be two more allocations of fishing licences made in an area that is already tight in terms of the fishery and conservation. In my view, we are not supposed to be issuing additional licences. I would expect that the aboriginal community would have to wait until such time as those licences would be available.
I will ask the parliamentary secretary this for greater clarity and certainty in terms of where we are at relative to the Marshall decision. The fisheries committee provided the Department of Fisheries and Oceans some time ago with quite a list of questions and has never received any answers relative to the Marshall decision.
Can the parliamentary secretary assure me that no licences will be granted unless they can be purchased in order to be turned over?