Mr. Speaker, the member for Abbotsford painted quite a picture of the reason for the 2012 changes. He talked about farmers' drainage ditches being the reason for the gutting of the Fisheries Act in 2012. I remember it quite differently. My understanding of the real reason behind the changes was to do with then prime minister Harper's concern about the Fisheries Act causing a problem for the oil agenda he had, which was to get those pipelines to tidewater.
What did the Conservatives do? They went after a specific section of the act, which was about habitat protection, and removed it completely. They switched the focus of the act to serious harm to certain fish, commercial fish, making it practically impossible to prove that any project would have an impact on fish or fisheries. In fact, that caused the absolute opposite of what he was hoping for, which was certainty for business and industry. It started to cause uncertainty.
Six hundred scientists spoke out. Two former Conservative fisheries ministers, John Fraser and Tom Siddon, spoke out. What would my colleague say to John Fraser and Tom Siddon about their concerns about the changes in 2012?