Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore for his comments and his vision for the industry.
He is a member of the fisheries committee, as are many members sitting here today and they do a good job. The committee does a great job and the members do a lot of hard work. They go across the country consulting and that is very key. That should be a priority this fall, as soon as the House comes back. That is when the committee should start talking to fishing families and groups right across the country and get a proper assessment of where it should go.
What is one year? We should do this properly. We want to make this bulletproof. We want this act to be flexible enough for the fishing communities and flexible enough for our changes of habitat. This is what we want. We want the ownership in their hands.
There is a big mistrust out there and it is a shame. I have not seen it in other departments as with the fishers and the bureaucracies. It should not happen. They should be working together. The bureaucracy should be collecting the data and presenting it to the fishers. They should be working together, and that is the way they want it, but this bill seems to skate away from that.
The hon. member for Sackville—Eastern Shore is well aware, because he visits us once in a while in Cape Breton, that Cape Breton is the same as many other communities, whether in Newfoundland or throughout the Maritimes and the west coast.
This is a great opportunity. If we do this bill right, it is a great opportunity for our communities. It is a great opportunity for the fisheries committee. It could also be a great opportunity for the minister, whoever that may be, to come to this House with some proper legislation that everybody can live with and is good for the future of the fishers.