Mr. Speaker, I want to rise to speak to this fascinating bill. I have to say that every time I hear a group of MPs from Newfoundland and Labrador, my vocabulary always expands a bit. They throw around some terms, whether with respect to fishing or to hunting, that are unknown in the rest of the country, so it is always interesting.
This is what I have noticed since the member for Central Newfoundland came on the scene here in Parliament just four years ago. The Liberal caucus from Newfoundland and Labrador was virtually unknown. Its members hardly ever spoke a word in the chamber, it seemed. However, with the one member, suddenly the debate changed in the chamber, and we began hearing all about important Newfoundland and Labrador issues. I remember that he would stand up in the last Parliament and shame his counterparts on the other side about issues they were not addressing in Parliament.
Then, I see today the member for Terra Nova—The Peninsulas again getting up, and I hear him saying that already he has had some success with his bill. Just by his tabling it, the government has announced a review on this very issue, so we are seeing great success on an issue that matters to members from Newfoundland and Labrador.
Of course, there is a third member, from Long Range Mountains, who is no shrinking violet either. They are a trio. We can see why the Conservative representation in Newfoundland and Labrador is growing. I know we are going to see strength and growth there in the years ahead because of this representation.
I learned long ago, when I was first elected, that if we want to know what is happening in the fisheries, we do not go to DFO, like the member for Labrador has clearly done; we go down to the end of the dock and talk to the men and women who fish our waters, and we find out what is going on: what is working, what is not and, more importantly, how to fix it. That is exactly what my two colleagues from Newfoundland have done today by bringing forth this important issue, speaking on behalf of their constituents on a matter that is so important to them. I understand that.
What I think a lot people in this town and in the bureaucracy do not understand is that the weather does not always co-operate, the environment does not always co-operate, and we need flexibility when it comes to not just a resource but something that members in our communities in Atlantic Canada have done long before Canada was Canada, long before the founding of this country, and certainly for hundreds of years before Newfoundland and Labrador came into Confederation.
It is so exhilarating to have members come to this place and make principled and passionate arguments about bills like this and how they impact communities and people back home. We are going through an affordability crisis. What better way to help families back home than to give them the option to go fishing to provide for their family and their community, which is what began to build Newfoundland and Labrador hundreds of years ago.
In that spirit, I have to applaud the members for bringing the bill forward, speaking to and on behalf of their communities, and advancing it. I think we are going to see a win here. We can tell, when the government begins to pre-position a consultation on a bill brought before the House by a new member has who has been here just a few months, that he can already score a win. He has forced the government to act.
We are going to keep pushing the bill through Parliament. I think we are going to chip away. I know that my three colleagues from Newfoundland and Labrador will not just debate it here; they are going to take it home, and they are going to fight for it in the towns, the communities and the ridings, and on the air and on social media. They are going to shame their colleagues to convince more of them to vote for the bill. I applaud their hard work.
At some point, if we have more of these debates, we might need a third interpretation channel so we can get all the local terms from Newfoundland and Labrador understood here in the chamber. I look forward to that and to this debate's continuing very soon.