Mr. Speaker, I will start again.
I want to bring the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard back to the conversation around chinook salmon and the announced closures, the difficult and bold decision that the government had to make because of mismanagement by consecutive Conservative and Liberal governments, especially a decade under the Harper government, which gutted fisheries protections, cut jobs for science and muzzled scientists. This has had a huge impact on the chinook salmon fishery.
I want to focus on the commercial fleet. The commercial fleet has not been getting any sort of compensation or help from the government since the announcement of the closure for the commercial fleet, which continues until August 20. That is a long time without any support for families to trying to make their mortgage payments or keep their boats afloat. There was money put aside, $17 million, that is still sitting in the Pacific salmon treaty fund that has not been used to compensation Area G trawlers specifically.
We are looking for the parliamentary secretary to tell coastal people what Liberals are going to do in terms of their tool box. Are they going to go to communities and my riding, look fishers in the eye and tell them that they are not going to do anything for them, that they are just going to leave them high and dry for the summer, or are they going to make sure they show up and help them get through this very difficult time?
I urge him to do that.