Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to speak to this motion. It is important that I quickly touch on what the motion is calling for.
The motion states:
--that the maintenance of the sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River is crucial for conservation and for commercial, recreational and aboriginal users;--
I do not know who could not support that.
The motion is to basically acknowledge that this resource has been mismanaged, that decisions have been made without proper science and that as a consequence we should have a judicial inquiry to determine the cause of the collapse of the sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River.
Mr. Speaker, the Fraser River is probably close to where you reside in British Columbia. This is all stuff that we have seen going on for years. I do not know how any member could not support this motion.
When I was the vice-chair of the fisheries committee in 1998, we brought the entire fisheries committee out to British Columbia that year. We heard testimony from one end of British Columbia to the other. We heard testimony from the stakeholders, the recreational sector and the commercial sector. The committee travelled to the riding of the member for Vancouver Island North, to my riding and to the lower mainland. We literally packed hall after all. We heard from very angry, not just fishermen but recreational fishermen, every stakeholder in the group. These people were frustrated beyond anyone's wildest imagination about the mismanagement of the fishery. The chair of the committee at the time was George Baker, who is now in the Senate.
The committee made a number of recommendations which were supported by all parties. Unfortunately, six years later in 2004 what are we talking about? We are still talking about the mismanagement of the fishery.
The member just talked about the 2001 fisheries committee report. We also have the 2003 fisheries committee report which states that we should invest in more science and in more enforcement personnel instead of cutting them, but each report keeps talking about mismanagement.
Nothing has been done. If we do not look after the resource it will not be there. This is not something that we can take for granted.
Where does the money go? Where is the money spent in this department? When I was first elected in 1997, I said that there were no fish in the Rideau Canal. Why do we have an ivory tower here with thousands of DFO personnel? Why is almost half the entire DFO budget spent in Ottawa? Why are we not managing that resource on the east coast and managing the resource on the west coast? Why are we not bringing the science that is managing the resource to the source?
We should bring the management of that resource out to each coast. We should remove the politics and the partisanship.
I remember when fisheries ministers would open fisheries weeks before an election purely for political gain and to the detriment of the fish stocks.
I heard the member for Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca talking about this. I could have brought in his quotes from the last six or seven years in Parliament because I clearly remember what he said on these issues. He is singing from a different song sheet today but I guess that song sheet comes from the department.
The member has great proposals. Let us look at the hatchery program. In his own backyard, the Goldstream River hatchery, which is run by volunteers, does an outstanding job but it receives a mere pittance from the federal government. What does the federal government do? It comes and it cuts even that.
The government does not cut the resources in the ivory tower, just out at the front lines. When we hear stories that fisheries officers have their boats tied up to the docks because there is not enough money in the budget for fuel it makes us shake our heads.
I applaud the committee. The member for Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, a new member in the House, came to the British Columbia Conservative caucus and said that this was a serious issue. He advocated for it. He is on the fisheries committee. I would also argue that he was largely responsible for getting that committee out to British Columbia to hear witnesses.
Yes, the committee can do this great work and write a great report, but will the government do anything? The record speaks for itself. Why are we even talking about this today? Did the government listen to the Baker report? Did it listen to the 2001 report or the 2003 report? Had the government implemented the recommendations would we be standing in this House today talking about this crisis?
We could always encourage a judicial inquiry. We could put in a scoping clause. We could ask the inquiry to do a preliminary report, appreciating that a full report does take longer, and ask that the preliminary report be delivered before decisions are set in place for the 2005 fishery, but we must start taking these steps. It would be a great investment of taxpayer dollars to hold this judicial inquiry, and then to see some real action.
If we had followed the recommendation in the Baker report of 1998, which talked about moving the management of the resource to the source, I would argue that we would have been a lot better off today.
People wonder why we are cynical on this side of the House. Whether it is the sponsorship inquiry, the government refuses to answer questions; whether it is on immigration matters, it refuses to answer questions. I have been a member here for a few terms and it seems to me that once the Liberals get to the Rocky Mountains they only see the Pacific Ocean. They seem to forget that there is actually more of Canada on the other side of the Rocky Mountains. Whether it is the fishery or it is airport rents, it does not seem to matter. The Fraser River is in British Columbia but the government's actions demonstrate that it does not care.
For years the government has been warned about the east coast cod fishery. It should have listened and acted, but instead the fishery collapsed. For years we heard similar warnings about the west coast salmon fishery. It should have listened and acted, but the fishery collapsed.
The government must take immediate steps to fix this problem. History has proven that it cannot be trusted to take good advice. It has been there. There are permanent records. I worked with the member from Prince Edward Island and I appreciate his comments on many of those reports. He knows what I am talking about. He was there. He helped draft those recommendations and those recommendations have still not been followed.
It should not have come to this. I would have been the last one to ask for a judicial inquiry but it has come to this. Nobody can deny that fact. The House owes every fisherman in British Columbia, regardless of where they are involved in the industry, an apology, and we owe them our best effort to make it right.
I would ask all members to remove the partisan politics and let us start getting some honest answers. Let us start looking for solutions. Let us let the judicial inquiry do some work, concurrently with the work that the standing committee is doing on fisheries, but let us make sure that this does not happen again.