Thank you. It's good to see the enforcement of rules so clearly, Mr. Chair.
On the issue of the actual motion, which is a complete reversal of the motion that I originally proposed in spite of the vote of this committee, the fact is that the original motion and this motion do the opposite. This motion claims that they are actually doing the job, and as we've heard from elver harvesters—apparently you were listening, but you didn't hear it—the enforcement isn't happening to the level that is needed to stop the poaching, at any level of the supply chain.
This motion I will not support, because it actually says that for the government, the Liberal government, Liberal fisheries minister number six is doing as good a job on this as Liberal fisheries ministers numbers four and five. This has been going on for 10 years and number four, number five and number six have screwed up this fishery for 10 years, increasing poaching.
They keep trying the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. They keep closing the fishery, thinking that will take poachers off the river, when all it does is allow for free rein. There is no enforcement after 1 a.m. on the rivers in Nova Scotia. DFO has no enforcement officers on the river. They're pulled off at 1 to 1:30 a.m. every bloody night, and that's when the lawlessness happens. That's when the shots are fired into people's houses. That's when people are terrorized by the criminal organizations doing this, yet all the government wants to do is say that the legal harvesters should stay off the river to some mythical regulations because the criminals doing this—the criminals—will be afraid of regulations.
There's a Fisheries Act now, and licensed harvesters now, that the department can enforce the law on. All they have to do is enforce the law, which for years we've been asking for and the government and the officers remain under-resourced and unable to enforce. Then we wouldn't have the massive crime happening in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia right now because of the incompetence of Liberal fisheries ministers number four, five and six.
This committee is going to try to reinforce the fact that they think, with all this lawlessness going on, with all this crime going on, with all this poaching going on and with not one single exporter and not one single buyer having been arrested to date, that somehow we should throw flowers at the minister—