Mr. Speaker, I have a great deal of respect for the member. I might be happy to debate the issue he raised at some other time. Right now we are speaking about a single line regulation that says fishing licences have to be enforced.
I want to keep on that topic because I am pretty sure his party is supporting the bill. The member for Sackville—Eastern Shore spoke in favour of it last week. I think from what he said he was supporting the bill. We simply want fishing licences to be legally enforced.
I have never had my words and speech described as melodic and free flowing. I cannot take credit for that because those were not my words. They were words of experts in the field to whom I defer, of ministers whose whole careers have been in dealing with fisheries. There are anglers and hunters. I think one particular organization has 78,500 people who are interested. They have their professional legal resources who want this regulation to be made legal. I want to keep this very simply. It is simple to change the act without discussing the larger philosophy of where decisions should be made. I would be happy to do that at another time.
Just to recap, there is a regulation right now that says one has to follow one's fishing licence but that is illegal because penalties are involved. To the credit of an all party committee of Parliament, it figured that out. We are at jeopardy of being unable to enforce fishing licences. We simply move that one line, which says that one has to abide by one's fishing licence, into the act. That is why fisheries ministers, hunters and angler associations want to make this legal change so we can continue to enforce fishing licences.