Mr. Speaker, it was with great interest that I listened to my hon. colleague across the way. I very much appreciate his interest in the fishery and in small craft harbours that the motion was originally made on. Somehow he got off the subject and into capital gains.
Very quickly and for the record, in case someone actually is listening to the debate and realizes that it is more important than simply a press release for the hon. member, I first introduced the private member's bill in 2003. There was an election in 2004. The Liberal government had the opportunity at that time to bring in a capital gains deduction for fishermen, but chose not to do it.
Two parties, the Progressive Conservative Party and the Alliance Party, were combined in 2004. There was an assembly in Montreal where we established the policies we would run on in the next campaign. I took the matter of the private member's bill to that group. There were over 2,000 individuals at the assembly from coast to coast to coast. The bill was supported entirely as it was written for intergenerational transfer. We did not know if we would be able to support the $500,000 capital gains being available to everyone at that time because we had not seen the books.
We included it in our policy. I actually sat at the table to make sure that it was included in the policy in the last campaign in 2005-06. It was brought in by the budget of the government. The former government had opportunity after opportunity to bring this to fruition for the fishermen of this country and refused and failed to do it.