Mr. Speaker, what Conservatives fail to understand is that 50% of nothing is still nothing. That is the problem.
They talk about stock rebuilding and making sure that Canada enjoys every pound of fish that it can get and that Canada harvests every pound of fish it can get without any concern or relationship to other NAFO members that are conducting foreign overfishing in the offshore area.
What is very clear is that some of the very same stakeholders that the parliamentary secretary alludes to were the very same stakeholders who said in 1989, “Let me take the last fish. Let me keep fishing. The consequences will be too grave”. They said again in 1990, “Let me take the last fish”.
There has been a strong conservation ethic that has been pronounced by the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador by stakeholders, industry specialists and those who would prosper in the short term by an increased capacity to take that last fish. They are the very ones who came to our committee. They are the very ones who spoke very passionately and vocally in the public domain saying, “Let's not do this. Let's preserve the fish stocks so that we can enjoy them for generations to come. Let's not make the same Conservative mistake of 1980 and 1990”.