Thank you very much for the question, Mr. Leslie.
What's different about the hunting and angling community in Canada, versus everybody else who talks about environmental conservation, is that these people actually get their hands dirty and are out there in the field cleaning up rivers, improving fish habitat and creating wildlife habitat. They number about five million people. They are always forgotten in these kinds of fora.
For example, the Smithsonian Institute in the United States did a major study on bird abundance, and they found that the only bird species that are doing well are waterfowl. They attribute it directly to the work and positive actions taken by hunters and anglers, who collectively prioritized preserving these species. There was a group of people who actually went on the ground and got their hands dirty.
I noticed in the testimony from the B.C. Wildlife Federation.... Unfortunately, his talk was truncated, but he talked about on-the-ground work that's done.
When we were in government, we instituted something called the recreational fisheries conservation partnerships program. Over the three years that the program ran, there were literally hundreds of freshwater projects conducted by Canada's angling groups with regard to fish habitat and fish population enhancement. It was a remarkable story of community partnerships with government.
Unfortunately—and it's a fact, not my opinion—when the new government came in, they cancelled that program.