Mr. Chair, again the member for Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte has zeroed in on exactly the problem. If one is cynical, one could think that the government actually thought the rationalization plan should be trustees in bankruptcy, sheriffs arriving with forfeiture orders, taking people's leased trucks on the backs of tow trucks and seizing assets of a fishing enterprise.
I cannot pretend to know every region of the southern Gulf of St. Lawrence, but in my own riding, and the fishing industry is obviously very important to me and the communities, I can say that there are a number of older fishermen, people who probably do not have debts on their boats and have paid off the debt they originally had when they bought their fishing enterprise, who are basically participating marginally in a viable fishing enterprise.
Some of them cannot afford helpers and many of them are in fact fishing alone. The captain or the skipper goes out on his own on a boat, which represents some safety challenges. These are often older fishermen.
The reason they are in this industry is that the government has not allowed them to find a way to exit the industry. It does not have to be an exaggerated, indefensible, federally funded buyout program, but there has to be a reasonable way to remove these people from the industry, give them some dignity in retirement and allow the younger fishermen who want to stay in the industry or become professional fishermen to have the prospect of earning a reasonable living, to be able to borrow money, improve their boats or buy new ones, to perhaps get into other fishing activities in order to diversify their enterprises. None of that is possible because of the economic circumstances in which these people currently find themselves.
The minister knows and cares about the fishing industry. I have no doubt that the minister, who has very considerable knowledge about the Atlantic fishing industry and has served in the government of her province of Prince Edward Island, as I say, has exactly the same fishing circumstances as I do on the other side of the Northumberland Strait. She understands and cares about this industry. I have no doubt about that.
What I think is unfortunate is that central agencies in her government, perhaps the Minister of Finance or the President of the Treasury Board perhaps do not know what a wharf looks like, and at the end of the day she was not able to get an effective plan that I am sure she wanted for her constituency, for mine and for the important fishers of this industry. I hope to work with her to continue the progress that can be made to support these communities.