Mr. Speaker, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans document reveals that on March 25 of this year, three months before the opening of the salmon season, senior fisheries officials on the west coast were warning of a disaster if the level of enforcement was further downgraded on the Fraser River. They warned of a "repeat of the missing sockeye problems that occurred in the 1992 season".
Why did the minister ignore these warnings and initiate the reduction in the enforcement effort which led to the disaster of 1994?