Mr. Speaker, for the last 15 years warnings have trumpeted the fact that the west coast fishery was heading into trouble. Therefore, it came as no surprise that the Fraser report concluded the Department of Fisheries and Oceans was completely out of touch with the reality of what happened to the salmon stocks returning for spawning. That fact had been backed up by numerous task forces in the past and continues to this day.
I implore the minister to go back to the generalist format for the DFO officers, to listen to the DFO officers who are working in the trenches, not necessarily the bureaucracy, to enforce the
law equally for all people who are fishing, to ensure that we have a sustainable fishery on the west coast for future generations, and to ensure that what happened on the east coast does not happen on the west coast.
The writing is on the wall. Let us not ignore it.