Mr. Speaker, my friend has hit the nail on the head. The reason we and the stakeholders are asking for an inquiry is because we have been the other routes. We have been the protest route and the court route, and we want an end to it.
The people who are involved in the fishery on the west coast, whether they are commercial or sports fishermen, and the public at large are tired of the strife over it and they want answers. They want clarification. They want to know what is going on. They are tired of the finger pointing. They are tired of reading it in the press. The only way that will happen is to have a judicial inquiry, with the chair being neutral and without any biases and being given the ability to subpoena witnesses and take testimony under oath.
We heard testimony from fisheries officers the other day. When I heard it I thought, and I think anyone reading the public record will think the same thing, that it sounded like everything was okay. However if we were to think about it, in 1994, when there was a problem, there were 33 fisheries officers in the whole of the lower mainland, which meant about six or seven officers on duty for the whole of the lower mainland, up Howe Sound and up the Sunshine Coast a bit.
When Mr. Fraser issued his report, Minister Tobin and others said that they would expand the number of fisheries officers. The number went up to 41 or 42, depending on who was doing the counting. This summer we had 29 fisheries officers, less than we had in 1994.
When I asked officials at the department whether there were helicopter patrols into the Fraser canyon this summer they did not know. I can tell members that there were none. Ordinarily they patrol over 300 hours a year but this year there were none. They do not know what is going on there. They say that they went up the canyon in a boat. What happens to the other areas? They do not get covered. The coverage is not there.
Somebody, once and for all, has to answer these questions. I have been asking questions for 12 years on this stuff and I am getting tired of it. I want answers. The public in British Columbia want answers. The fishing industry, the fishing community and the aboriginal communities want answers. We want them and we want it done once and for all. We want a judicial inquiry.