Mr. Speaker, in listening to the exchange between the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore and my colleague, it amazes me how the NDP member, during the first few months that we were talking about the bill, went around saying that we were going to give away the fish and privatize it. The people in the field educated him when he would not listen to us that it was not the intent at all. In fact, we said here in the House that we were more than willing to use the exact wording in the bill that the courts used.
The member talked about no consultation. I think the last time a change was made was back in the days of Bernard Valcourt, a good Conservative fisheries minister, and nothing has been done minuscularly ever since.
Consultations have been held since a new bill was attempted to be introduced in the House by then Minister Crosbie at the time. Ever since then for 15 years consultations have been held across the country on ways to improve the act demanded by the people in the field.
Consequently, saying that no consultations have been held, of course not on the act, nor on the bill. We are not allowed to go out with the bill, as the member well knows but has not learned yet.
On top of that, he talked about the fact that we cannot make amendments as we moved forward. Of course we can. We just need to look at the clean air act or the Federal Accountability Act to see all the amendments that can be made. Some amendments need to be made and we will make some because of the demand from the field.
The hoist motion would kill the bill. We cannot take the bill out around the country and the member has been here long enough to know the difference. Maybe my colleague would like to comment on that.