Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks to all my colleagues for joining us today. It's nice to be back together as a committee.
I want to echo the concerns raised by the previous three speakers. For us on the west coast, the west coast salmon issue is obviously the most compelling and urgent issue we face. Our west coast salmon are declining at such a rate that it is an existential issue right now. There are so many different challenges that the salmon face, everything from the Big Bar slide, to overfishing, to the types of nets used, fish farms. Many different issues are implicated on this issue. The sooner we can have the minister at the committee and the sooner we can actually flesh out additional opportunities to address the issue, the better.
As you know, the Cohen commission did issue its report a number of years ago. The government responded. I recently went through that report. There were dozens and dozens of recommendations and some of them were responded to in a way that really did not satisfy me. It would be very helpful for us as a committee, as part of that exercise of reviewing the west coast salmon fishery, to walk through those recommendations and determine which ones still require a more comprehensive response from the government. So far we still have a challenge and there's no indication that our west coast salmon are recovering at all. In fact, if anything, the signs are pointing the other way.
There's a little anecdote I want to share with all of you. Last week my wife went in to shop. Yes, she socially distanced, but she came back with a couple of tins of sockeye salmon. Each tin cost seven dollars. Now, I've never seen sockeye salmon quite that expensive, and I think in part it's reflective of the fact that the supply is no longer as abundant as it used to be. It certainly should compel us as a committee to undertake this study, and complete it, and bring the minister and her officials in to speak to us.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.