Mr. Chair, the member for Cape Breton—Canso as well as the member for Beauséjour and myself have been complimentary of the minister's decision to ensure that those who are new entrants to the southern gulf crab fishery are not penalized by their date of entry into the fishery.
The minister took a very deliberate decision. She basically upheld a decision by the former Liberal government, recognizing the legitimate place of new entrants into the fishery. She said that the new entrants would be guaranteed a stable position within the snow crab fishery in the southern gulf not only for this year but for five years straight right up until 2014.
From our side that seems like a very responsible position to take. We applaud her for it.
I would like to ask the member, should that principle also apply with other fisheries as well? There has been some suggestion in the northern shrimp fishery that the minister may actually turn herself around in this and apply a last-in first-out principle instead of actually saying that we will institute a fair increase, fair decrease principle in terms of allocations.
There is some concern in the industry that the minister may in that instance choose a last-in first-out instead of using the model that she used for the southern Gulf of Saint Lawrence crab fishery, the model used for her own constituents, which is regardless of the fisher's date of entry into the fishery, there is still a place and the fisher will still share a proportionate share based on the previous percentage of the quota.