We'll now go to Mr. Arnold.
Mr. Chair, fisheries and oceans stakeholders and coastal communities face unprecedented threats from the COVID-19 crisis, and they deserve the support of all levels of government, including their own MPs. Yesterday the Liberal and NDP MPs banded together to restrict the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans to just four hours of sitting in the summer months. Conservatives are ready to put in the hours to support Canadians, while the Liberals and NDP refuse to do the work. When will the Prime Minister tell his MPs to get back to work for the Canadians who need their support?
Mr. Chair, we all agree that committees are doing extremely important work, and that's why committees are meeting regularly. I would like to remind my colleague that the committees are masters of their own destiny and make their own decisions, not the government.
Mr. Chair, it took months for DFO to realize that fish passage on the Fraser River was blocked at Big Bar. Then it took them seven more months to tender a contract to clear the blockage. Now that contract has tripled from $17.6 million to over $52.5 million without a single communications post from the minister's office.  The original contract amount was clearly inadequate, so who ordered it?