Mr. Speaker, I have a great amount of respect for my colleague from Foothills. Certainly as well as being rural Canadians, we have a lot in common.
My concern goes back to when the Fisheries Act was gutted in 2012, and when the former government removed protections, especially HADD, we saw a huge number of forestry companies moving their log sorts to the water. When they do that, a lot of the sediment and bark ends up on the bottom of the river, especially in the Somass River, and it becomes a mat and that mat is a huge problem. Those pristine estuaries are very critical salmon habitat; they are important for chinook on their way out, they are important for sockeye on the way in. As we know, with climate change we are seeing warming of our waters. A lot of our sockeye coming back up cannot go too high because they cannot be in too warm water, and now they cannot go too low because there is not enough oxygen because it is being choked out by the matting that is being created there.
With the restoration of HADD, we are hearing huge concerns from people—this is not a partisan issue; this is is about our fish— about how loose things are when it comes to practices of moving our wood to our water. How can my colleague justify not having HADD when it is critical? Right now, unless a fish is being killed that is of commercial value and it is a commercial fish, no individuals are going to get charged when they behave like this and there are practices that are being implemented like this. What does the member propose? What is he going to do to help protect our fish in those important estuaries?