We did have a guardianship program. We were working with DFO. We had a program in our inlets.
Our inlet is one of the deepest in the world. It is the deepest inlet in Canada. It's very deep and it's very long. We had a guardianship program where we were working in partnership with DFO. I'm not exactly sure what happened. In talking to some of our predecessors, for whatever reason the funding was just discontinued. We've been having a lot of discussions about it. We were indicating that at this point we believe it has to be one of our priorities. We have to look at how we can fund this program. Could we proceed and move forward without DFO? That's the question. I don't believe we can. We are asking DFO to come back in and partner with us.
It is very important for our nation members to be patrolling the waters and monitoring it and letting us know when things are happening. It's very difficult right now. Our inlet is very long. I myself probably get up the inlet probably two or three times a year. Every time I go up, I'm very shocked at what I see. I see the derelict boats. I see a lot of illegal things happening. We are asking ourselves how we can monitor it and protect it.
I believe we could do it very well. We have the capacity to do that within our nation. We do want to work with DFO on that. It is very, very important. Our community members are passionate. They're diligent. They want to protect our land. They want to protect the water. They'll go out there and make sure that happens. It is in the best interest of all of us to ensure that it does happen.
We're very hopeful that we can work with DFO in readdressing this issue and getting our guardianship program back on track. I have been monitoring the guardianship programs up in the north with Haida and other nations, and they're very significant. I am so impressed with how they're working with DFO on their guardianship programs. We welcome the opportunity to be able to offer that same support.