Mr. Speaker, I may have been misunderstood in some of my comments. There is no question that it is a priority, but it is a delayed priority.
The government has introduced the bill, but if an election is called the bill will die on the Order Paper. The reality of what I am trying to stress is that we have many issues dealing with aboriginal and non-aboriginal people when it comes to access to the fisheries. I do not believe that introducing a bill at this late stage of the game is the way to do it. If the government were serious about this it would have introduced a bill of this nature a long time ago and put it forward for serious debate.
To have a debate of this nature this late in the game on such a serious issue just shows the government's priorities, which is that there is no priority when it comes to this issue. The government will say “Look what we are trying to do but unfortunately there is an election”. We never heard the minister say that if the Liberals were re-elected they would reintroduce the bill. No, what we have, this is it.
I wish my colleague from British Columbia future good luck. She is a great member of the House of Commons but, unfortunately, circumstances dictate that she may not be back again. Although I am on the NDP side, I must say that it has been a pleasure working with her on many issues.