Mr. Speaker, I am very saddened to hear the rhetoric around fisheries that I have heard in this debate. Nothing has happened that is catastrophic in the world of fisheries as a result of the changes that were made to the Fisheries Act in 2012. Nobody anywhere in this country can point to a single incident of anything directly related to the changes in that bill. Everybody wanted those changes. Counties wanted them and even fisheries officers wanted those changes so that they could more effectively enforce the law.
I remember issues where farmers whose fields were flooded actually drained their fields and were charged because the old language in the act interpreted a flooded field as a fisheries habitat, even though it was only flooded for a couple of days. People faced ridiculous charges for things like that. There is nothing actually done for fish by changing the legislation in a way that actually prevents restoration and habitat projects from going ahead.
What we actually need are amendments that will do things like habitat banking which, for some reason, the government does not want to do anything about by increasing spawning channels. Rather than stopping all activity, we should enhance things, do offsets and increase the productivity of the natural environment. That is not done by changing legislation that gets in the way of all of these things.
The continually stumbling and bumbling of the left-hand side arguments that somehow we need legislation that pretends humans do not exist in the world is what is actually causing the environmental degradation that we have right now. We need enhancement. We need the ability to intervene and to work hard on behalf of fisheries. These changes are not doing it.