Evidence of meeting #40 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was rebuilding.
A recording is available from Parliament.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
I call this meeting to order.
We have no witnesses yet, and we're still short a few members. While we're waiting they will distribute the report of the subcommittee. Your subcommittee met yesterday--another one, yes. This one's a little more up to date than the last one, so we'll have another attempt at it.
Please take a few moments to go over the report. We will entertain any discussion that might ensue.
3:35 p.m.
Bloc
Raynald Blais Bloc Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC
Could you give the report to the interpreter as well?
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Are there any questions or comments concerning the report of the subcommittee?
Mr. Stoffer.
3:35 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
If we're still here on December 8 and 10, I wonder if we could tentatively add a discussion of Fraser River salmon.
3:35 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
In our first report, which we've discarded, we had a day set aside to discuss a work plan. We will certainly include that. The first possible date is December 8. If that meets the committee's approval, on December 8 we will discuss a work plan on aquaculture and the sockeye salmon in B.C.
Are there any other questions or comments?
Mr. Byrne.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
I was trying to find it myself, but I couldn't find reference to it.
With the additional 21 sitting days that the government has presumably allowed Parliament to further consider the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization revised convention, what date does that bring us to? The original date was October 19.
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
So in other words, if we complete the NAFO convention report by November 19, which is a Thursday, and report it back to the House by the following Monday or Tuesday, that will bring us to....
3:35 p.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Exactly. We'll have one day for the House to consider this--to actually have a motion of concurrence, debate it, and either adopt or deny the motion of concurrence.
I wonder if all honourable members on the committee understood that when we agreed to the 21-day extension, it would bring us to November 19. We have to wrap this up. The Parliament of Canada has to wrap this up by November 24. The committee will have to complete its report by November 19, and then we'll have approximately one day.
Does everyone understand that correctly?
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
We would have one day to debate this in the House of Commons and have a vote on it. That doesn't seem hugely practical. That's why I raised my original objections or concerns to extending the amount of time this committee has to consider the NAFO question. I sincerely wish we would have had a vote taken back on October 8 to bring this to the House, but we did not.
I just don't see, practically speaking, how the work of this committee on this very important Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization issue will have any relevance or possibility of being taken up by the House of Commons in the timeframe that's necessary before the government has the option of unilaterally deciding this at the cabinet level.
I would invite any further discussion that committee members may have.
3:40 p.m.
NDP
Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS
Mr. Chair, I can shorten this up very quickly.
From the subcommittee the other day, in talking to the analysts, the chair, and parliamentary secretary, my advice to Mr. Byrne is to speak to Mr. MacAulay. There is a way to shorten this process to give us more time.
Not to get into the debate, because Mr. MacAulay is not here, but by all means—and Mr. Blais was there as well—if you speak to Mr. MacAulay on that, I think you'll find a way that a report can be done extremely quickly, through a previous motion that was entered before, and it can be entered into the House much sooner than anticipated.
For the sake of our witnesses, speak to Mr. MacAulay, and we can have that discussion as well, later on, if you wish.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
Randy Kamp Conservative Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC
I have two points.
Our motion asked the government not to ratify until this committee has had an additional 21 sitting days. That doesn't necessarily mean that the day after the 21 sitting days expire the government would go ahead and ratify. It just means they can't do it before then. They certainly can do it at a time later than that.
But I find this discussion curious, because the whole discussion at the steering committee was based on the fact that Mr. Byrne had asked for an additional two days at least, so that he could bring in the seven witnesses that he had outlined for us. That was the instruction that Mr. MacAulay was going on and we as a steering committee agreed to do, with the possibility of an additional one of our own.
If he doesn't want all seven witnesses, if he wants to cut that back, we're open to considering that as well.
3:40 p.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I kind of anticipated that move, Mr. Chair. That seems to be consistent with what has been happening lately. I'm sure we'll get a good brush of government witnesses in the next little while.
I'd like to provide notice. Regarding my original motion, which I gave notice of on October 4 or 5 and it was available for moving on October 6, we subsequently delayed that at the request of certain committee members until October 8. I'd like to give notice of motion, with the exact wording, immediately, so that we can bring this up on Thursday.
3:40 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you, Mr. Byrne.
As a point of clarification, the witnesses identified to appear before this committee are the same as those on the list that you provided to this committee, with one exception, that being the addition of former minister Hearn. It was brought up at the steering committee yesterday and agreed by the steering committee that former minister Hearn's name be added to the list as well. So when you make reference to another list of witnesses, that's the only addition to the list that you provided to the clerk.
The steering committee felt very much in line with your wishes. It certainly wanted to have a good cross-section of witnesses and decided to move forward with your wishes, with the exception of former minister Hearn.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
I understood that, but I'm trying to be practical and realistic here. Under the timeframe we are in right now for having the report completed by Thursday, November 19, with the government not providing us any assurances whatsoever that they will not act unilaterally immediately after November 24, we do not realistically have an opportunity to get this onto the floor of the House of Commons within the allotted timeframe that we understand the government has set out. This puts the consultation time with Parliament up until November 24, after which time they can act in cabinet, through the Governor in Council, to ratify the NAFO convention.
Under that circumstance—and maybe the parliamentary secretary can provide some specific information on this to which we can hold him to account—would the government agree not to call this question into cabinet, not to ratify it for at least another 14 calendar days after the November 24 deadline? If they would do that, we'll proceed with the schedule as contemplated by the steering committee and as set forward in the third report of the subcommittee on agenda and procedure of this committee. If not, I think what we really should do is give notice of motion in the exact form and content, as I did on October 6, 2009, the exception being that the dates would be changed accordingly. I would then be in a position to call my motion on Thursday, October 29.
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Thank you, Mr. Byrne.
On this report of the subcommittee, what I suggest is that we put it aside at this point in time. You might want to have a discussion with the member from your party who sits on that subcommittee, and we can revisit this at that time. You are certainly within your prerogative, if you wish, to table a motion on Thursday, October 29. I've asked the clerk to look into that, because you talked about tabling the same motion that was before the committee, simply to check for clarification on that. Obviously there will be some changes to the motion with the dates and what not.
Anyhow, at this point in time we have witnesses here who we have asked to appear before the committee, so I suggest that we put this subcommittee report aside and revisit it at another time.
3:45 p.m.
Liberal
Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Notwithstanding your research into the technical aspects of the procedure itself, will you consider the notice of motion formally given?
3:45 p.m.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative Rodney Weston
Yes, certainly. At this point in time, we do consider that, barring technical reasoning for not accepting it.
So we'll put the subcommittee report aside.
Right now I'd like to welcome our guests today and thank them for taking time out of their busy schedules. I understand you have travelled quite a distance to be here. We really appreciate you taking the time and making the effort to appear before the committee today.
Generally, gentlemen, we allot a time of ten minutes for presentations. Then committee members have a certain amount of time allotted to each party for questions and answers. If you hear a beeping noise from here, that's an indication that time has expired, whether for presentations or for questions. I would ask you to try to adhere as closely to those timeframes as possible to allow members of all parties to ask questions.
Mr. McDorman, I'll let you proceed at this time.
3:50 p.m.
Dr. Ted McDorman Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Victoria
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Telling professors they only have ten minutes to talk is a challenge. I have a few introductory notes, and I'll be happy to respond to questions. I know my colleague, Dean Saunders, has a few comments as well.
I want to point out to the committee that although I'm from the University of Victoria, as was established earlier, I grew up in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. I'm an east coast boy on the wrong damn coast, as I frequently say. Worse than that, I'm from Dalhousie, as is my colleague here. So if it seems odd to have a Pacific coast professor, I've got some good bona fides from the east coast and I've spent some time, of course, studying the apple in different ways.
I want to make it clear that obviously I'm not here defending the government in any way, shape, or form. I think the Government of Canada is quite happy that I'd never speak for the Government of Canada on any issue, and I suspect that will continue. I also want to point out to the committee that I was not part of the negotiating team in any way, so I have senses of the background but I don't know the precise nature in which the negotiations took place, what was presented, what wasn't presented. Also, I'm not aware of the direct trade-offs that would have been made. I am aware of the positions that have been clearly stated by various members of this committee already, having read some of the House committee reports. And of course I've been well apprised of views on many of these issues by the four wise men: Bob Applebaum, Scott Parsons, Earl Wiseman, and.... I'm sorry, I always forget the fourth one. He's wiser than the other three, I know. I apologize for that.
My focus on fisheries issues in recent years has been on institutional matters and institutional issues around fisheries organizations around the world. In 2005 I presented one of the lead papers on this topic at the 2005 St. John's conference that was sponsored by the Government of Canada. It was a look at the trends, the challenges, where we were going. The perspective I bring to the committee, I hope, is comparative. I've looked at and continue to look at what other fisheries agreements have been doing as a way of evaluating the NAFO amendments, since this does tend to show the state of play in the world on fisheries organizations. It also, I think, provides some indication of what is achievable in negotiations. If you look at what other organizations are doing and what is being done, it gives you some sense of what is achievable in any particular negotiation. Having said that, I am aware that all fisheries agreements have a different context, and of course the negotiations have a very different dynamic. So NAFO is both similar to others but is also different from others, and I'm keenly aware of that.
Some of the discussions, the approaches, and the attitudes that are often shown to NAFO, within the NAFO context regarding Canada's position, is that Canada should just get what it wants, since the resource matters the most to Canada and that a failure to achieve that result, that optimum outcome, is a failure of will or a failure of tactics. I fundamentally disagree with that. The NAFO negotiations are not easy. The international domain is beyond 200 nautical miles, and in the international domain one state has one vote, and Canada is having to negotiate on even ground with the European Union and with the other members of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization. In my view, Canadian negotiators have been burdened for years by unrealistic expectations of what they can achieve regarding fisheries beyond 200 nautical miles. Hence, when they come back with something that may not be ideal, they are heavily criticized, not only in the NAFO amendment context but in many other contexts to do with NAFO.
Where does that leave us with regard to the NAFO amendments? You have two options, essentially. You adopt the NAFO amendments, which is fine and dandy, or you reject them. Rejecting the NAFO amendments means you go back to the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization as it currently sits, as it currently operates, and as you know from the committee's reports going back many years—this committee, the Senate committee—NAFO has been very heavily criticized in terms of its abilities to control fishing and Canada's position within NAFO.
There is indication by some that in recent years NAFO has worked reasonably well. I don't challenge that; I don't have a particular perspective on that. Rejection inevitably will lead to a restart of negotiations. I guess one of the questions this committee could answer, and I have some views on it, is whether it's even remotely reasonable to expect a significantly different outcome. I don't know.
The other option, of course, is just to kill NAFO, walk away from NAFO, withdraw. The problem is that plays exactly into the international community's hands, because Canada, whether we like it or not, needs the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization more than the Europeans need the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization.
That gives you a sense of the negotiating dynamic that takes place.
Those are my brief comments. Thank you for the time.
