Mr. Speaker, yesterday, we learned that the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada changed the status of the St. Lawrence beluga from threatened to endangered.
This decision comes as no surprise since the population of belugas in the St. Lawrence has dropped by over 10% in the past 10 years and now numbers fewer than 900 whales.
In recent years, dozens of dead beluga calves have been found on the banks of the river, and scientists still do not know why. If they had the resources, they could do their job better, but the Conservatives eliminated the ecotoxicology department at the Maurice Lamontagne Institute, which specifically studied the health of the ecosystem in which these majestic creatures live.
Clearly, the slow decline of the beluga population is an important environmental issue, but it also has a serious economic impact: beluga whale watching attracts thousands of tourists every year and the economic spinoffs of this activity are estimated to be over $150 million for the Charlevoix and Lower St. Lawrence regions.
The public was not really in favour of the oil port in Cacouna to begin with and it has now deemed the project to be unacceptable. The oil port project must be scuttled.