Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I suppose I am concerned that this regulatory change wasn't included in part 3 of the bill, where it would have been reviewed by the appropriate subcommittee, which is I presume why it's before this committee now. That subcommittee would have had the expertise and the background and the information on perhaps the other associated changes to the Fisheries Act.
I note that today press conferences were held. It's kind of appropriate we should be debating this now, because in response to the cuts to DFO that affected the Experimental Lakes Area of northwestern Ontario and the Freshwater Institute in my home riding of Winnipeg Centre, in fact press conferences were held in Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, and Ottawa on this very day to draw the attention of the public to some of these very regulatory changes we find in clause 411.
In the case of the Experimental Lakes Area, there has been a huge international hue and cry and outrage. I understand this has more to do with science and research than it has to do with regulation under the Fisheries Act, but I think the two really are linked in a way they can't be separated.
The question that's being asked and that the government should explain to us is what is the business case for eliminating some of these research facilities when they in fact have paid for themselves time and time again in the 40 or 50 years they've been in place?
This one particular example is $2 million a year. They saved the Province of Manitoba $400 million a year through one piece of research they did. Lake Winnipeg had all these algae blooms. They were worried about the phosphates and the nitrates going into that lake. It was going to cost $400 million to eliminate them both. The research at the Experimental Lakes Area found it's actually counterproductive to eliminate the nitrates simultaneously and may even encourage more algae blooms. So they only went after the phosphates and saved $300 million or $400 million. The Baltic Sea copied them and saved 3 billion euros.
The dedicated work of 17 scientists in the Experimental Lakes Area at $2 million a year has saved the world in terms of the freshwater resource and the costs of ensuring the integrity of our freshwater resources tens and hundreds of millions of dollars.
It's inexplicable. The public are kind of shaking their heads at some of the changes to the Fisheries Act and the elimination of the scientific research that's being done on our freshwater resources.
I can't support a clause that makes regulatory changes to the Fisheries Act, first of all because it has no place in the budget bill, and secondly, I think it's wrong-headed, it's counterproductive, and they can't even point to a business case.
It's more like they're trying to pre-emptively shoot the messenger. If they don't like the information coming out of scientific research, don't even wait until that research is done and then reject it, but do away with the research facility altogether. You know, what you aren't measuring you can't object to.