Thank you, Mr. Chair.
It's a huge honour to table e-petition 2512, which was signed by 1,198 petitioners, primarily from the province of Nova Scotia.
The Province of Nova Scotia invited multinational companies to scope out and develop expansive open-net salmon farming operations. The petitioners cite that the expansion would increase environmental degradation, as seen in similar aquaculture operations in British Columbia, Newfoundland, Norway, Vietnam and elsewhere in the world. It also, they cite, would pose risks to native fish stocks, pollute coastal ecosystems, impair at-risk wild Atlantic salmon, and threaten established fisheries and tourism operations. They also raise concerns that open-net fish farming would not create significant employment and would undermine existing lobster and other fisheries.
They are calling on the government to uphold Bill C-68 and species-at-risk legislation, protect our oceans, ban expansion of open-net finfish aquaculture in our oceans, work to phase out any existing open-net fish farming operations currently in place and, lastly, invest in land-based, closed-containment finfish aquaculture.
I want to thank these petitioners for fighting for clean oceans, for their local economy and for the well-being of Nova Scotia.