Madam Speaker, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans asked why we should spend millions of dollars on an inquiry. His province is spending millions of dollars on an inquiry into a salmon run that failed miserably.
My hon. colleague from Newfoundland is absolutely correct. I was the NDP fisheries critic for over 13 years. I asked for a national federal inquiry into the practices and policies of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. In the period 1998 to 2000 the Hutchings and Myers report came out, which the hon. parliamentary secretary should know, and those two scientists indicated that there was science manipulation at the very highest levels within DFO when it came to the collapse of the cod stocks. The government of the day was warned that the cod stocks were in trouble and it ignored that warning.
That is just one tiny element of why we need to get to the bottom of the serious mismanagement of the fisheries and oceans in this country. I would like my hon. colleague to comment on that, please.