Madam Speaker, I am glad to rise today in the House to raise a question regarding the bill.
There is an expression that says, “Where there is uncertainty, there will be instability”. What we have heard from those who are going to be most affected by the implementation of the bill as it stands without the amendments, and very helpful amendments that were proposed by the official opposition, means that there is going to be continuing uncertainty and instability within the sectors, especially for the fish harvesters who have raised very legitimate concerns about how this will affect their potential livelihoods for the future.
Once again, this government is lending a deaf ear to the concerns of those whose livelihoods are at stake that would result from the implementation of the bill before us. If the Liberals had worked proactively with us to address the legitimate concerns of those whose livelihoods are affected, perhaps we could have gotten somewhere with the bill. However, there was no proactivity. Several of our amendments, in fact all of our proposed amendments, to my knowledge, were rejected out of hand. The consideration of those in the fishing harvest and the energy sectors in Newfoundland and Labrador as well as in Nova Scotia were ignored. Once again, people were not engaged properly, and the concerns of those most affected by these decisions were ignored.
Can the minister please provide some assurance that the government will start listening to the concerns of Atlantic Canadians on this matter?