Mr. Speaker, I listened with some interest to my friend's comments. I always find that when people go on the attack and suggest that other people do not know what they are talking about, they certainly leave themselves open to that criticism. However, what I would say, given the member's comments, is that it shows to me the reason why there should have been a more open debate on this.
So I do not take up all of the time of the member opposite, as there are only five minutes left, let me approach the issue of the salmon. The member suggested that somehow I had it all wrong.
The salmon issue is fairly clear. All of the bands up the river and down the coast have stated a desire to share in the commercial harvest of salmon, over and above their food fish allocations. The Supreme Court of Canada has ruled that there is no entitlement to a commercial allocation, but in this treaty the ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada has been ignored.
In fact, the government has entered into three treaties in the last two years. There is the Tsawwassen treaty. The first one that the government entered into was the Yale treaty. The Yale band is located just at the western entrance of the Fraser Canyon. It is a small band, yet it got an allocation very similar to the allocation of the Tsawwassen band.
The second treaty is the Lheidli T'enneh treaty. That band is resident and its lands are adjacent to Prince George, which is 500 miles up the river. That band has never had a commercial harvest of salmon. In fact, I would suggest that by the time the salmon have reached 500 miles up the river, they are not fit for commercial sale. Yet the band was given, although it rejected the treaty, a commercial allocation of salmon similar to the allocation given to Tsawwassen.
The member talked about precedents. Given the precedents, it is not outrageous for me to say these are the populations of these various bands and if they are given the same allocation as the Tsawwassen band, we are going to end up with a--