Madam Speaker, I want to respond to my colleague's question. I have the same type of concern. I think he understood my speech very well. He has made similar comments previously.
In my view, we cannot pass Bill C-52 because we would be giving power to public servants that should be reserved for the House of Commons alone. We cannot give public servants the power to send people to prison. Bill C-52 goes that far. If someone commits an offence under Bill C-52 or one of its regulations, it is the public servant who has the authority to assign the penalty, and not the House of Commons.
It is important to specify that any criminal penalty must be passed by the House of Commons. Here, that is not the case. This is a slippery slope, which seems extremely dangerous to me.
If we presented this to the fishers on the west coast—my colleague talked about this and I thank him for it; I enjoyed my time there—or the east coast, or even in Ontario, they would say this makes no sense. The day they understand the meaning of Bill C-52, people will say it is nonsense. They would not be able to defend themselves in court because of the arbitrary power of a public servant. This is extremely dangerous. I think my colleague understood that very well.