Mr. Speaker, in the absence of Jean-Pierre Blackburn, my teammate in the House of Commons, I would like to provide a more detailed answer to my friend from the Bloc Québécois.
The hon. member wrongly believes that the Government of Canada no longer cares about the fishing industry. He said, among other things, that the budget envelope of $34 million over five years allocated to the fishing communities economic development initiative for the Gaspésie, Îles-de-la-Madeleine and Côte-Nord regions had disappeared.
That is incorrect and totally inconsistent with reality, as evidenced by the new regional economic development measures recently announced by Minister Blackburn.