Mr. Speaker, my colleague and I share a salmon connection—I on the coast and my colleague in the interior. This is such a valuable industry for our province. Our province was built on salmon. We are salmon people and we have a very strong commitment around the indigenous relationship in British Columbia to stand up in every way we can for salmon. This is a 100% federal responsibility.
Sockeye salmon at our latitude, which are already at their southern range, are threatened with extinction by 2050, and maybe all species of salmon, beyond sockeye, by 2100. It would be a disaster economically and environmentally. We cannot let that happen.
What is happening is that, as rivers get hotter, the salmon either cannot go up to spawn, or else they wait in the hope for cooler water at which point they get preyed on by seals and other animals.
When we lose our salmon population, not only are there human impacts, but the endangered orca whale that is resident in the southern Strait of Georgia, also known as the Salish Sea, is losing its primary food. Therefore we have a commitment as the federal government, a deep responsibility to protect the Chinook salmon on which the endangered orca rely. It is a mammal identified as a species at risk, and we have a strong responsibility to act. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions is the best way for us to do that.