Honourable senators, I’ve been dealing with the problem of Atlantic salmon for 40 years and for the last five years in this Senate, and I’ve never received a credible answer from either representatives of Fisheries and Oceans Canada or any of the fisheries ministers — I think this is the third one — about our wild salmon stock and how it’s depleted. They don’t seem to have any answers. They have a lot of regulations, but they don’t seem to have any answers at all.

In Bill S-5, they’re called “living organisms,” but there’s nothing more spectacular than seeing a salmon move into a pool early in the morning or at evening for that matter. The idea of genetically altering this species is both dangerous and arrogant, and it’s being done in the United States and in Canada with Atlantic salmon. It will not end well because sooner or later the genetically altered species will enter our waterways, one way or the other, and I have no idea what will happen to our wild salmon if it does.