I want to thank you from the department for being here today to talk to us about this.
Mr. Swerdfager, I want to recognize the habitat work that has begun, in part with our previous government, with the recreational fishery conservation partnerships program. I hope to see that program continue.
As members of Parliament we are ultimately responsible, but we have to look at our departments and hold them accountable. One thing that has really been of concern to me since I've come here.... I want to go back to the commissioner of the environment and sustainable development and her report referring to the integrated fisheries management plans. Those plans were first committed to in 1995. There was a recommitment in 2009. Now the latest response from the department concerning the reason those plans aren't implemented is that your department is now going to develop a plan to develop those plans. We're getting into decades later and we still haven't implemented plans.
That leads to the wild salmon policy. That policy was developed years ago, yet now the response is that we will continue to implement the policy incrementally and that work is under way to develop an updated wild salmon policy implementation plan. You're making a plan to implement a plan.
The buck stops somewhere. Where do we stop this, so that we get actual plans in place and active?