Mr. Speaker, one would almost think he believed what he just read but the fact is that he forgot to tell us that further on in the act the governor in council may override certain things that the minister chooses to do.
The reality is that it was a previous Conservative government that was in power when the world's largest collapse of a natural resource took place off the east coast, the collapse of the northern cod. Four billion of our tax dollars went to readjust that industry and over 50,000 people left the great province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Not one person from DFO or the government was ever held accountable for that.
It will be those people who will be there for the collapse of the independent fishermen and their communities.
If the member is so convinced that it is a public resource, as stated in the Supreme Court decision in Comeau's Sea Foods Ltd. v. the Government of Canada, why is that not in the preamble of the text? It is not there. It is incorrect for him to say that it is public property. It is not. This act would clearly turn it over to corporate hands, the big players.
If he is right about a public resource, how does he explain that the Jim Pattison Group controls over 70% of the herring stocks on the west coast? How does the--