Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. However, his comment might be better addressed to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
In any case, the Bloc Québécois has decided to base its position on the essence of the issue. Let us take another look at the text of the motion.
That, in the opinion of the House, the government has failed to live up to verbal and written commitments made to Premiers by the Prime Minister during the last election campaign with respect to the Equalization Program and the Atlantic Accords.
There is no doubt that equalization is a complex concept. There is quite a history behind the evolution of this practice, this distribution of wealth. Above and beyond that, however, a commitment was made by the Prime Minister when he was a candidate for election. Basically, his mistake was making a commitment that he was unable to honour afterwards.
The fact is, people came to realize that the commitment was not necessarily realistic. For the Bloc Québécois, the ultimate solution needs to be even more advantageous than the Prime Minister's original commitments. Nevertheless, from a political standpoint, the commitment he made should have been honoured. Failing that, a satisfactory explanation should have been given.
At this time, we do not consider the explanation satisfactory and we see that, throughout all the provinces in question—I was particularly impressed by the testimony given by the Premier of Saskatchewan on this matter—utter frustration abounds. This frustration is due to the fact that the commitment should have been expressed differently. Perhaps he should not have gone so far and should have been less focused on vote-seeking. Ultimately, he should have honoured the commitments he made.