Mr. Speaker, as it is my first chance to address you in the year 2023 and if there is no statute of limitations on it, happy new year.
I am honoured to present a petition from my constituents. As many petitions before this one have attested, residents of British Columbia are deeply concerned that the populations of Pacific salmon are in free fall. One of the proximate reasons for that is the presence of what are referred to in some context as fish farms. My constituents prefer to call them toxic fish factories.
There has been guidance from the Cohen commission and others that these operations should be removed from the migratory routes of Pacific salmon, but these petitioners point to a specific problem, and that is that the mandate for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans includes both regulating aquaculture and promoting aquaculture.
The petitioners call for this conflict of interest to be removed such that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans protects the marine ecosystem particularly for the sustainability of the Fraser River sockeye.