Madam Speaker, my friend opposite in her remarks said that she would welcome more public scrutiny into the fishery and I do not think anybody on this side of the House would disagree with that comment.
The issue today is whether Bill C-52 would allow more public scrutiny of the Fisheries Act. That is the issue before us.
Let me just lay the terms out of what Bill C-52 means to me and then I would like to know if she concurs with my assessment.
Bill C-52 takes away the regulatory authority, the scrutiny that Parliament enjoys over regulations that are put forward by the government, and gives that regulatory making ability to a public servant, a civil servant or a bureaucrat. In doing that, it removes the oversight of the regulatory making procedures from Parliament. Currently under the Fisheries Act if a regulation is put in place, that regulation will be examined by the scrutiny or regulations committee, the joint committee of the Senate and House of Commons, to determine if that regulation fulfills the intention that Parliament declared in the act.
If the bureaucrat is attaching conditions to a licence, that oversight ability of the joint committee is removed and there is less public scrutiny, certainly less scrutiny by the House, on that regulation authority making by the bureaucrat. That is my take on it. Is that what the member opposite is saying.