Thank you very much for the question.
Let me say to you, since you are a west coast member, that we have put a lot of money into fisheries on the west coast, into the health of the oceans in particular, which is of great interest there, but also into the whole initiative of trying to bring together a unified fishery in British Columbia. This has been worked out with all the partners, bringing everybody to the table.
We have had peace on the rivers, we'd say, these last couple of years. We've added a number of habitat people in the region. We have added enforcement officers. The enforcement officers are doing work where they should be doing work, and habitat people are doing work where they should be doing work, and working with the groups, and agencies and councils, etc.
I think the major achievement was bringing the first nations around the table where they became part of what we're doing rather than being excluded. They have made major contributions. Consequently, we've been able to solve a lot of problems in tricky situations, so it is all coming together.
I should also mention Mr. Kamp, my parliamentary secretary, who is representing the west coast and doing a great job, as he is on the committee. If some of you have a concern and you want to talk to the minister or that type of thing or you want to make it political, don't hesitate to run it by Mr. Kamp, because we talk every day, and we can deal with that for the sake of the committee.
In relation to the independence of the inshore fleet, a number of you were around this table with me over the years. We were on the committee. Every time the representatives from the east coast--I'm thinking of people like Earl McCurdy and those--would come to the committee, they would talk about the fact that big business and people with money were starting to control the fishery. They were starting to buy up licences. Instead of the fisherman being able to go out, get his quota, fish it, and benefit from every cent he could derive from it, he was really only fishing, receiving a set wage from somebody who really owned the licence under the table through a trust agreement.
We talked about it a lot. We did nothing about it. We did when we came into power, again, mainly because of stuff we picked up here at the committee. We said we would clean it up. We have brought in a program that will eliminate trust agreements, that will put the licences back into the hands of people who depend on the fishery for a living. It will put the benefits derived from the fishery into the pockets of those who make a living. We've given them a relatively short time to get all of this and put their act in gear, as we would say.
Consequently, the whole initiative is to make sure those who operate in the fishery are the ones who benefit from it. That doesn't mean we're going to try to shove people out and destroy business--not at all--but it does mean that on the harvesting side, the people who will harvest the product will be those who will get the licences and will be operating their boats or businesses.