Mr. Speaker, it is important to note that Canada's involvement in fishing and aquaculture contributes $5.4 billion in total GDP to the Canadian economy and 71,000 in terms of full-time equivalent jobs to the country's economy. This is extremely important in my province of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The raison d'être of the settlement of Newfoundland and Labrador going back 500 years was based on the abundance of codfish, in particular, off our shores, so it is a matter of great existential importance to the communities, the economy and the future of our province. It is extremely important that we value this type of legislation and this approach.
I will give one quote back to the member, from the Fisheries Council of Canada, which said:
The problem that has emerged in trying to address this IUU through an international agreement, the port states agreement, is that it's taking so long. It took a long time to negotiate and it's going to take a long time to be ratified by a significant number of countries to be able to attest that this is the right thing....
This is clearly the problem here, that we have taken a long time to get this far and we are going to have to do a lot of work as a country in order to ensure that other countries follow suit and make this the enforceable pact that it is supposed to be since 2007.