Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, I appreciate the opportunity to say a few words on what I consider to be a very important issue. I also appreciate the member's concern for the future of the Pacific salmon. It is a concern that the minister and I share wholeheartedly.
In fact the member and I had the opportunity last December to travel to British Columbia. We spent three days in Vancouver hearing witnesses on this issue, in particular the collapse of the Fraser River salmon run during 2004. We heard from the many stakeholders involved. I certainly do not want to understate the seriousness of the situation. It is a very serious situation.
The committee came back to Ottawa and we spent quite a bit of time, probably 12 to 14 meetings, preparing a unanimous report. As the member stated, that has been in the minister's hands for close to a couple of months. I know that the minister appreciates the effort that went into the report and that he does value the advice of the committee. I am sure the member opposite joins me in looking forward to seeing how the minister and the department address our recommendations, which I repeat were unanimous.
I am pleased to report that the minister and the department are working on a number of fronts to address this situation and have been doing so for quite some time. As the member has quite rightly pointed out, a repeat of this situation will not be tolerated at all. This is a top priority with the department and with the minister. He has visited British Columbia seven or eight times in the last year and a half. He has certainly taken this issue as a number one priority.
On December 17 he did release the wild salmon policy. That policy is an accumulation of years of scientific research and broad consultations with the stakeholders, including the first nations, the public and commercial fishers. It provides a conservation based framework of concrete actions to restore and maintain healthy and diverse salmon populations in the years to come. Further consultations are ongoing. The final document ought to be released by May 31 of this year. It will report on a number of issues.
Our committee report is not the only report that was involved in this. There was the Pierce-McRae report, but perhaps most important, since our report was tabled in this House, we had the report of Mr. Justice Bryan Williams. He also heard extensive evidence on the whole issue. I will not go into detail but he basically made the same recommendations that we made. There is a lot of paper written on this issue and hopefully the issue will be addressed this year.
Again I want to state that this is not a simple problem and there is no one simple answer. There were a number of factors involved in the problems with the 2004 run, such as poor environmental conditions, warm water, concerns about unauthorized harvest. Again there is another concern about the accuracy of some of the reporting methodologies. These are issues that are being looked at.
I believe we are going to see some changes this summer following the policy that is to be released. The number of initiatives and reports currently in the works are giving the minister and DFO much food for thought in determining how west coast fishers can move forward in the future. My learned friend is wrong. There is--