Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the importance of science to the fishery.
As a result of the intervention by the government with respect to the Fisheries Act and what it refers to as a modernization of the fishery, we are seeing little respect being given to science and to the scientists who play such an important role in ensuring the sustainability of our natural resource. Whether it is dealing with the cod stocks, or any species or fishery for that matter, science is so important to ensuring that when we put quotas in place we know exactly what we are doing. Any decision that we make with respect to the fishery should be based on science, as well as input from those who engage in the fishery, whether it is those in the fish processing side or in the harvesting side.
However, we are finding from the government little appreciation for science and the influence of science, in terms of the health of the fish stocks. When we look at the fish habitats and what is being said today by former Conservative fisheries ministers with the changes to fish habitats, it just does not make sense.
More than 600 Canadian scientists, including some of the country's leading experts in environmental protection and animal research, are asking the Prime Minister to abandon plans to remove habitat protections from the federal Fisheries Act.
It is serious when we have scientists, who know only too well how important this is, go to this extreme to plead with the Prime Minister not to go down this path. These people have the knowledge and the expertise. Those of us who serve in these positions, including the Prime Minister, ministers of the Crown and bureaucrats, are not on the front lines in terms of what happens in the fishery. It is the scientists we rely upon. They spend years researching these topics. The fishers and those who process and harvest the fishery have the knowledge necessary to ensure a sustainable fishery and to ensure that we do what is right in terms of fish habitats.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, these scientists say changing the law would be a most unwise action. It would jeopardize many important fish stocks and the lakes, estuaries and rivers that support them. They are encouraging, in fact, they are imploring, the Prime Minister to abandon this initiative, as it is currently drafted.
This is not coming from me. This is not coming from an MP for Random—Burin—St. George's, where my communities are primarily rural communities that depend very heavily upon the fishery to ensure that the people have a livelihood and can provide for their families. This is coming from scientists who have devoted their lives, as this is their area of expertise, to looking into these subject areas. They are looking at what the government is proposing here with respect to the Fisheries Act and they are saying it is wrong.
I am asking the government to listen to those scientists, to recognize how important it is that we listen to people with the expertise, the knowledge based on their experience and their research, that this is the wrong thing to do.
People have answers. The government does not have all the answers. The opposition does not have all the answers. However, I can say that people who spend their lives researching these topics do so seriously and they know that this is wrong. We are asking, on their behalf, for the government to take their request seriously.