Mr. Speaker, Canada's fisheries have declined significantly in recent years, despite Liberal promises to reverse those trends.
Threats to Pacific salmon stocks grew exponentially last year with the discovery of the Big Bar slide on the Fraser River. Efforts to capture salmon and move them around the blockage benefited a few fish, but few survived the ordeal.
After six months of Liberal promises, work has finally begun to remove the blockage and hopefully avert the extinction of these salmon stocks. I thank the engineers and workers currently working to fix Big Bar, but I also join many Canadians in wondering why it took over half a year for the government to get to work on this urgent job.
All along the government has promised to resource this work, but its delays cost the loss of an essential resource: time.
This is only one of the challenges facing our fisheries, and we will be holding the government to account on the actions it takes or does not take on the file.