Madam Speaker, Conservatives will be supporting this motion. I am a member of Parliament from the west coast and, obviously, seafood, the fisheries and fishing have been part of British Columbia's history from the time it began with the first nations and for the past couple of hundred years with fishers.

It is fine to have a motion, which Conservatives support, on a national seafood day, but it really camouflages, I would say, the inaction of the Liberals, backed by the NDP, on the fisheries front. They are really not getting anything done. They put forward this motion to show what they are doing and say it is a love fest because we all agree about the importance of the fishing industry, but their policies have really been targeted to reduce fishing and the fisheries. They have mismanaged the whole sector.

I have visited different communities where the fishing industry is really important. I have met with industry officials, owner-operators, those trying to make a living, and the frustration is palpable with the Liberal government. They feel that this industry and their livelihoods are under attack. It is a growth industry for the Liberals, but in what sense? While they put $300 million into the industry on the west coast, almost all of it is allocated toward 200 new bureaucrats. They are inflating and building up the bureaucracy and not really making any difference on the ground. They are actually making things worse.

There are different issues that are a big deal and that are having a negative impact. For example, the marine protected areas are basically closing down very significant areas of the coastline to fishing. There have been Order Paper questions on some of the different issues with these marine protected areas, as well as with the southern resident killer whales in the no-transit areas. There have been questions about how many whales go through this area, what times of the year and whether there has been a difference. It is sealing off areas for harvesting and fishing. The Liberals' response has been that it is a good question but they do not know what is going on. Basically, they are implementing their policies willy-nilly and destroying the livelihoods of many British Columbians by their insane and unscientific policies, which are taking significant areas away from fishing.

One of the biggest issues with regard to protecting the fisheries and seeing growth in the industry, on which there is almost unanimous consent, has to do with seals. We need to realize that 97% of unnatural deaths of salmon are not by fishing. That is 3%, but 97% is by seals. A councillor from one of the first nations in my region said that seals are destroying the salmon catch, and there is nothing being done about it. Liberal ministers sit on their hands, not doing anything, and then they blame it on climate change or whatever, when it is just bad policy and bad management of the fisheries.

We need some grown-ups, some adults managing the fisheries. I am looking forward to a Conservative government, which would bring some common sense.

Another issue that is of great importance is that of owner-operators. Conservatives, under the Harper government, made it so that those who operated the boats had to be the owners. It was not just going to be the big corporations.

The Department of Fisheries just seems to be lazy. It would rather deal with two or three big companies than a lot more of the smaller owner-operators who live in the community, provide jobs in the community and actually bring the fish back to the community to get processed. DFO prefers corporations that process the fish on the ships or take it up to Alaska. It is very frustrating for the fishers because they feel that their communities are being undermined by the Liberal-NDP government.

There needs to be some changes. That is what the Conservative Party supports, to put the power back into the owner-operators. Right now, the packaging plants have moved. They have moved to Washington and Alaska. They are not in Canada. They are not in British Columbia because of the Liberal policies. We want to empower the owner-operators, the small business people and the fishers to have the livelihoods that would help the first nations and coastal communities that are dependent on it.

The Liberals and NDP, including the provincial NDP, are at war with the workers. We want to support working-class Canadians.

Marc Dalton

$664,317.00