Mr. Speaker, yet another commercial fish stock off the east coast is in trouble.
The quota for northern shrimp will be cut this year by 30%. That is a lot of grief that the Conservative government has chosen to inflict on the inshore fishermen of Newfoundland and Labrador, on our processing plants, and on our outports, which have had more than their fair share of grief.
The Conservative government has decided to follow the so-called last-in-first-out policy that favours big business offshore licence holders. This is not about conservation or economics; it is about blatantly serving the top of the food chain at the expense of our fishermen.
The principle of adjacency whereby those closest to the resource benefit from the resource has been tossed overboard. The last-in-first-out policy should only work for the Conservative government and the cabinet ministers on the front bench.
Our inshore fishermen, who have cast their nets outside their front doors for 500 years, should be at the front of the line. They should play second fiddle to no one.