If I could respectfully disagree, I thought I explained through my last intervention about that minister that this is about accountability. This is about the accountability letters that the Prime Minister said.... This is about the Minister of Finance's accountability to Parliament, which she is ignoring. She has ignored the last three requests. There were three requests over the last while, but she has ignored four appearances at this committee.
You'll understand, I'm sure, members, that we don't believe that another polite request is having any impact, as the minister continues to ignore not only this committee but, frankly, Parliament as well, by only coming once a month. She has time for two hours of meetings at a Liberal convention here in Ottawa, but not two hours of time to come before the House of Commons finance committee to defend her budget.
The accountability aspect is a symbol for her lack of accountability to Parliament, and it's endemic in this government that ministers are not accountable to Parliament. Here you have me, as a parliamentarian, asking the Minister of Fisheries politely, respectfully, to do as the Prime Minister's letter says they are to do as ministers in their accountability, asking them to do something about lawlessness and not doing it in a political way.... This is not a political issue. Accountability to Parliament goes back to the founding of the mother of all parliaments at Westminster. That's the essence of our democracy.
We seem to be dealing an awful lot these days with questions from this government on what they think the essence of our democracy is. They think it seems to be okay to intimidate members of Parliament, to allow foreign governments to intimidate members of Parliament after they vote on basic human rights issues, on the imprisonment of Uyghurs in Uyghur states in China, and they express the defence of human rights in the House of Commons. Two years ago, the Prime Minister was sent briefing notes by our intelligence community that China is intimidating a member of Parliament. This is fundamental.
This issue is just as fundamental. The minister won't come to the committee and has refused requests to come in the past. I thought the member said they thought it was interesting.... I read your own documents that require ministers to be accountable and to work with parliamentarians in order to ensure, show and put pressure on the minister, because I think that's the only way we can do it. This issue is endemic within this government. This government does not respect Parliament, even though they ran on a campaign in 2015 to restore the integrity of Parliament.
When the mandate letter says to work “with your Opposition Critics”, and the minister ignores what an opposition critic says privately month after month.... I'm sure that my colleague, our shadow minister for finance, has suffered the same thing. In fact, I suspect he's probably had few meetings with the Minister of Finance, if any, and has had discussions almost.... It's an odd thing to me that a member of Parliament on this committee would question the relevance of a minister ignoring a heartfelt letter to a minister asking, “Why are you ignoring our pleas?”
As this person says, why did property owners along the estuaries have to suffer this disturbance? Why is it a free-for-all in fishing? All the activities create confusion, misunderstanding and resentment, emotions that only serve to create conflict rather than eradicate it. Furthermore, that the DFO shut down the fishery only served to stop those with legal licences. The illegal fishing continued. There needs to be some sort of plan put in place to protect the rights of property owners.