Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to make a statement about a flat fish with funny eyes called a turbot, or Greenland halibut. This fish is very important to Canada these days because there are no cod left but turbot still exits in some abundance in deep, cold Canadian waters. This is a fish that has been especially significant for the people and fishery of Pangnirtung in recent years.
Mr. Speaker, these days, the Honourable Brian Tobin, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans for Canada is making big waves in the international community, fighting foreign fishermen who are invading our waters to take Canadian turbot. Mr. Tobin is getting tough with these foreign fishermen and yesterday they were driven off by his threats that they would be boarded and seized by Canadian naval vessels if they try to catch our turbot.
Today, I would like Mr. Tobin to understand how my Inuit constituents and other Inuit who want to fish for turbot in the Baffin see the turbot fishery and see his heroic fight against the aggressors from away. Last year, eight Inuit HTAs and Inuit companies from the Baffin region applied for new licences to catch turbot in their coastal Arctic waters, relying on the clear Inuit preference to adjacent fishery resources spelled out in the Inuit land claims agreement. They, too, were competing with an invasion, however, but an invasion of a different sort: applications for turbot licences in Arctic waters from within Canada. What did Mr. Tobin do to protect the Inuit applicants from an invasion from southern Canadian fishermen? Not one of the new Inuit licence applications was approved.
Mr. Speaker, when Inuit from Baffin Island asked for protection from an invasion of southern Canadian license applications to fish turbot in their waters, they got no protection. The southern Canadian applicants received preference to come up and fish in our waters. Most were from the Minister's own home region of Newfoundland and Labrador. Of the licences given out for fishing 5,500 tonnes of turbot in Arctic waters last year, existing Inuit licence holders from Baffin and northern Quebec got 1,250 tonnes. The remainder of 4,250 tonnes went to southern Canadian invaders.
I'll ask for a bit more time, Mr. Speaker.