It has been twelve and a half years. My apologies. Mr. Speaker, he has spent twelve and a half years on the fisheries committee and has seen the east coast of the province in my riding several times over.
In 1992, the cod moratorium was announced. Upwards of 700 to 800 people employed in the local fish plant in Bonavista as well as several hundred people just down the highway, 1,200 to 1,300 individuals in the town of Port Union, which is now Trinity Bay North, were affected. These stories are a tapestry of how the people relied so much on it, and not just the people but the community. It was so sacrosanct to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. It is about the community that thrives and makes that province what it is today.
Therefore, this situation of the collapse of a resource such as it is gives us an idea of how devastating it can be. Now we find ourselves in a situation where we want to take control of our own destiny. One way to do that is to control the resource from which we feed, and that is off the east coast of our province up to 200 miles out. That is the reason issues such as these amendments have to be turned aside.