Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I haven't had a chance to get outside much in the past couple of weeks, but I am told that summer is finally here. That means that the commercial fishermen are heading back out on Great Slave Lake. It is only fitting that I make my sessional statement on the fishery. Mr. Speaker, earlier this month, the Auditor General of Canada, or AG, released his report on the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation. For those who don't know, all fish caught in the NWT that are sold across the border must be sold to Freshwater, which is a federal Crown corporation. It has a legislative monopoly on our export fish market.
When the corporation was established nearly 50 years ago, it was done so with the best of intentions. However, this month's Auditor General report confirmed what has been common knowledge in Hay River for decades: that Freshwater is not serving the best interests of our fisherman. The AG found many weaknesses, significant deficiencies, and outright failures in the oversight, management, and operation of the corporation. Given some of the things I have heard, that is putting it lightly. Further, the report found that the corporation has no long-term strategic plan, and has exposed itself to considerable risks in a complex economic environment.
These conclusions are no surprise to anyone familiar with the fishing industry. The only surprise is that things have actually gotten worse since the AG released a similar report in 2010. The core purpose of Freshwater, according to its vision statement, is to maximize returns for fishers. However, it is the fishermen who have borne the fiscal costs of Freshwater's ineptitude. Mr. Speaker, if you would like to see a physical manifestation of Freshwater's failings, look at the fish plant they own in Hay River. It was once a brand-new building, stocked full of top-of-the-line equipment capable of processing fish. Now the building is an eyesore, gutted of its ability to process fish, and demoted through a receiving plant. Fish are now trucked from Hay River to Winnipeg to be processed.
Unsurprisingly, Manitoba is set to withdraw from the corporation this year, meaning only NWT fishers will be obliged to sell their fish to Freshwater. I am not convinced the corporation will last much beyond that. If it doesn't last, the situation for our fishermen will go from bad to worse. We are hitching our wagon to a dying horse, Mr. Speaker, and we need to do something about it quickly, or we will be failing our fishermen the same way Freshwater has been failing them for the past 50 years. I will have questions about what we are doing to strengthen our commercial fishing industry and finally allow our fisherman to be paid fairly for their work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.