Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight in what we in the House often call the late show. What I am looking for is an answer to a question I asked on March 22 and a month later I am hoping that tonight I will actually get the answer. The question was regarding wild Atlantic salmon, especially in the southern uplands of Nova Scotia. Specifically the question was about the postcard I have with me and 7,999 postcards like it, which were mailed to the Prime Minister by Atlantic Canadian salmon fishermen. Not one of them received a reply.
To me that is a deliberate and scandalous slap in the face to sport fishermen and fisherwomen, to environmentalists, to ecologists and to anyone remotely interested in looking after wild Atlantic salmon, which are endangered and threatened in much of Atlantic Canada, and certainly as well to the Atlantic Salmon Association and people like Lewis Hinks, people who operate and work as volunteers, many of them with the Atlantic Salmon Federation, the Gold River Salmon Association, the LaHave River Salmon Association and others.
Any elementary schoolchild in New Ross, the community I live in, who received 8,000 letters or 1 letter would attempt to answer them or it, yet the Prime Minister and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans have chosen to ignore this extremely and critically important issue for all Nova Scotians.
It is not only the important issue of trying to save the species itself; it is an important commercial industry. It is too late for the offshore commercial fleets because they have fished the offshore salmon into extinction. However, it is not too late for the local rivers and the industry that they support. Salmon fishers put $11 million into the local Nova Scotia economy. There is another $47 million put into the local economy by trout fishermen.
It is important to know how these individuals talk about the salmon population in the southern upland rivers of Nova Scotia. Some rivers are extinct. Absolutely no salmon larvae survive in those rivers. The PH level is too low because of acid rain. In other rivers there are remnant populations, and in the rest of the rivers the populations have been declared depleted. On a good day, one may live near a river that is depleted, but far too many Nova Scotians, especially in the southern upland regions, live on or near rivers that once held thriving salmon populations, but now those populations are extinct or at the very best are remnant populations not capable of breeding and supporting themselves.
There are a number of issues, but the main issue for me is certainly that if 8,000 of these cards, which were done in a very professional manner, were sent to the Prime Minister of Canada I would expect, and I think any citizen would expect, an answer. Tonight I am here to hear the answer and then I will reply to it.