Mr. Speaker, I am glad to hear that the member for Charlottetown is celebrating the fact that the ACOA minister is from Mississauga. If he is proud of that, I guess he can sell that at home. However, we certainly think the ACOA minister should be from Atlantic Canada.
As far as Gail Shea goes, she never allowed the P.E.I. lobster carapace size to be changed to the detriment of P.E.I. fishers. I was told by the fishermen I met with that the member for Cardigan, now the Minister of Agriculture, used to thump on the desk and say the he would never let it happen as long as he was there, or question how the the Conservatives even consider it. Of course it never happened. Now that the Liberals have changed it to the disadvantage of P.E.I. lobster fishermen, there is not a word from anyone on Prince Edward Island.
As for the idea of a defeatist culture, it is defeatist to think that there are not enough judges and lawyers in Atlantic Canada to fill the entire selection list for the Supreme Court position. This has been a convention for 141 years, and the Liberals are now saying to let Atlantic Canadians compete for a position on the court. We are saying that they should be guaranteed that position. That has been a convention. No prime minister before has ever considered backing away from Atlantic Canada in the way the current Prime Minister has. Once again, we are hearing nothing from Liberal MPs in the region because they are taking the support of Atlantic Canadians for granted. If they will not stand up for them, we will.