I have three minutes.
As we know, the government closed the elver fishery, claiming that by doing so they could arrest and charge people who were exporting illegally, as well as the buyers. None of that has happened.
There is poaching going on in every river in Nova Scotia every night. There have been some token arrests, but nowhere near enough. The minister owes it to the elver harvesters—the 1,100 people she has deprived while others continue to steal that resource out of the river—to allow them to earn a living.
I'm going to move the following motion, which is on notice:
That, regarding Minister Diane Lebouthillier's decision to close the legal elver harvest of 2024, the committee finds that:
(a) banning legal fishing does not stop poaching;
(b) closing the elver fishery has not decreased criminal activity and violence in Nova Scotia as evidenced by the witnesses who have come forward to the committee to detail continued violence and lawlessness in their communities, including arson, assault, and attempted murder;
(c) closing the elver fishery has resulted in 1,100 job losses, harming rural Nova Scotian communities and the fishing industry as a whole, when Canadians are struggling with a cost of living crisis created by this government;
(d) current DFO and RCMP enforcement efforts allocated by the minister remain insufficient and have not put a halt to the violence or the poaching; and
given these findings, the committee therefore agrees to report these findings to the House, and call on the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard to immediately reopen the elver fishery.