Thank you, Madam Chair.
Mr. Farrant and Mr. Morrison, thank you kindly for being with us today.
We would have much preferred to meet with you with draft legislation to amend the Navigation Protection Act in hand, legislation the government could have introduced. Unfortunately, however, the government chose to do the opposite in its review of the Navigation Protection Act.
We, the committee members, received a letter from the Minister of Transport and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans compelling the committee to undertake consultations even before learning what the Minister of Transport's intentions were with respect to the proposed amendments to the Navigation Protection Act.
I'd really like you to understand the position we, on this side, are in at this stage in the committee's study and to tell you about the mandate given by the Prime Minister. At the time, Mr. Trudeau made quite clear, or just about, that he wanted to restore lost protections. In fact, you talked about that in your presentation, Mr. Morrison. I'd like to read an excerpt from the document you sent to us:
While not succeeding in getting changes to the bill, the exercise was not a complete failure; an opposition MP promised to look into the changes to the NWPA should his party form government. His name of course, was Justin Trudeau.
That resulted in the letter that the two ministers wrote and sent to the committee. The letter contains the following statement:
As part of our mandate from the Prime Minister [the very same Mr. Trudeau you mentioned], we have been asked to work together to review the previous government's changes to the Fisheries Act and to the Navigable Waters Protection Act to restore lost protections and incorporate modern safeguards.
You said the message had been received, coming in loud and clear. Unfortunately, we still don't know what those amendments will entail. We don't know which protections exactly the people in the Liberal Party want restored. We don't know what the government's intentions are. As I see it, it's premature to think that you will get back all the rights you had previously because we don't know what the government is going to propose.
There is another point I absolutely want to mention. The ministers, on their end, committed to consulting the various stakeholder groups to ascertain their interests and plans. Unfortunately, we found out from the Minister of Transport, himself, and the parliamentary secretary that he would not be undertaking any consultations apart from the general consultations a minister engages in when meeting with groups on specific issues in the usual course of their mandate.
Our preference would have been to have the proposed amendments before engaging in this exercise with the various groups who were in agreement on the amendments put forward and adopted in the previous act. It is a shame, but the government's approach sheds absolutely no light on its reasons or motivation or, more importantly, the proposed amendments.
I just wanted to give you a bit of context. We don't object to studying the amendments. What we object to is the process being followed. We object to the way the government is using the committee to justify a position that is hardly justifiable.
Now, I have some questions for you, Mr. Farrant.
In the wake of the changes to the rules under the Navigation Protection Act, what problems have the hunters and anglers you represent encountered?