Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for his comments and for his good work on the fisheries committee as well.
To begin, I wanted to bring to his attention clause 23 of Bill C-45, the new Fisheries Act, which states:
The Governor in Council may delegate, subject to any conditions that the delegation specifies, any or all of the powers conferred on the Minister by sections 15 to 18 or by Parts 1 and 3, or by the regulations made under any of those sections or those Parts, to a minister of a provincial government responsible for fisheries.
The bill specifically mentions Parts 1 and 3. Part 2 of the act, as he will know when he refreshes his memory on this, is the part about habitat, pollution prevention, conservation and so on. That part in the new act cannot be delegated to the provinces, so he should be less concerned about that.
My main question for the member is about something that is still not clear to me. It should be clear by now, because there have been a number of speakers from his party, but it is not. Where we are at this point is that we have had a second reading motion. We have begun debate at second reading on Bill C-45. That was interrupted by a hoist amendment. We are now debating the hoist amendment. It is still not clear to me what those members think we should be doing with this.
If the amendment passes, the bill is dead. If the amendment is defeated, we go forward and we decide what to do at second reading on Bill C-45. The member seems to think the bill should get into committee. Is the member saying we should pass or not pass this hoist amendment? Then what should we do? Should we vote on Bill C-45? Because the bill can get into committee only if this amendment is defeated and the second reading motion is passed.