Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to speak to Bill C-62.
As a member of Parliament from British Columbia, I am pleased to rise on behalf of many of my constituents whose concern over the management of the western fisheries is far more than just academic. Many of my constituents and those of my colleagues have been and are directly impacted by government fishing policies. Unfortunately, this impact lately and largely has been detrimental due to the injustice reflected by present Liberal government policies.
Bill C-62 rewrites the Fisheries Act and combines with it the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act.
What do we see in the fisheries today? There are problems in the fisheries. Much of them are the result of government mismanagement. On the east coast much of the fishery is closed due to the collapse of the groundfish stocks. On the west coast there are severe problems. There are continuing problems with the Alaskan
catch of Canadian bound salmon which remain unresolved with the Pacific salmon treaty.
On the west coast we also have the salmon fishery which is our key fish stock. It is a fishery which is in total disarray. There have been almost no non-native commercial fisheries on the Fraser River, which borders my constituency, for the past two years. The government native only commercial fishery is also in disarray.
Unfortunately the fisheries act which is before us today does nothing to address the foundational problems which exist in the government's high-handed approach to the fisheries.
Fisheries mismanagement has already had a deep impact on the livelihood of many B.C. fishers. I fear that continued mismanagement and the mindset we have seen hold dire consequences for the future.
Perhaps the most significant injustice in the present system and one which has received a fair amount of press coverage in my area is the manner in which the government has flaunted a supreme court decision that has literally established a race based fishery policy which benefits B.C.'s aboriginal fishers at the expense of the rest of the fishers in the province of British Columbia. In doing so it has trounced Canadian legal tradition and thus violated the rights of all Canadians.
In 1992 the fisheries minister of the day told fishers that the supreme court decision of Sparrow v. the Queen required the establishment of an exclusive native only commercial fishery specifically in law. In 1995 after the Fraser report's scathing condemnation of the government's race based policy, the supreme court declared unequivocally that its previous ruling did not call for such a system.
The native only commercial fishery was undermined by the supreme court's August 1996 Van der Peet, NTC Smokehouse and Gladstone decision. The court ruled against an aboriginal right. They have no right to an exclusive fishery. B.C. natives do not have a constitutional right to catch and sell fish commercially. Once the decision came down in August, regular commercial fishers, including my colleague, started to fish with the native commercial fisheries and had a full right to do so.
Thus, with no mandate from the courts, no mandate from the Canadian people and no mandate from Parliament, this government today maintains an unjust and, I will say, discriminatory policy in the fisheries on the west coast.
Specific to this management of the fisheries and specific to the item I have just mentioned, there is nothing that government can do under this new fisheries act that it cannot do already under existing legislation except, which I point out very specifically, for the right to extinguish the public right to fish. This essential change with respect to fisheries management is that the minister gains substantial powers to do what currently requires the specific authorization of Parliament or cabinet. This flies in the face of democracy and the good interests of the public fisheries in Canada.
The fisheries act which Canadians hoped would restore equity in the system fails to do so. As a result, the Reform Party cannot support this bill.
Today, I would like to take the time I have been given to read into the record a report that throws much light on many of the issues we are talking about today. It is a report written as a response to the Fraser River Sockeye Public Review Board. It is of note that this report is an evaluation commissioned by DFO on the performance of DFO with regard to the recommendations of the Fraser report which I mentioned earlier.
I will proceed to read this response into the record so that we can see the whole picture and how DFO has responded to what needed to be done. Some of the department's responses to the recommendations of the Fraser report are incomplete and others are still under study. The comments of this evaluation fall into six categories: management; institutional arrangements; the quality of the management principles; the aboriginal fishing strategy; the environment; and user groups views and responsibilities.
Under the title of management, specifically risk aversion management, the first recommendation is:
We recommend that DFO retain and exercise its constitutional responsibilities and not in any way abrogate its stewardship of resources under federal jurisdiction. Conservation must be the primary objective of both fisheries managers and all others participating in the fishery. The conservation ethics must prevail throughout and be adhered to by all.
The comments on the evaluation were:
-DFO did not achieve its escapement targets for Fraser sockeye in 1995.
-stock-specific conservation of Fraser River sockeye is threatened.
DFO cannot hope to succeed without a clear vision of what it is trying to achieve i.e., achieving conservation is more than just meeting escapement targets. The first requirement, therefore is an explicit definition of "conservation".
There can be no conservation of Fraser sockeye salmon in the long run without equivalent care and protection for the habitat on which fish stocks rely. In this light, the pending expiration of key programs as the Fraser River Action Plan, and the funding base that has supported it in recent years, is of utmost concern.
In terms of outcome, however, DFO was not fully successful.
DFO came close to achieving its escapement targets in 1995-It did not, however, fully achieve them. There were escapement shortfalls relative to target levels for all major run groupings with the most significant for the late runs.
The escapement shortfalls in 1995 indicate the need for even more prudence in DFO's planning and management than it exhibited in 1995.
Retaining and not abrogating: DFO officials do not believe they have in any way abrogated their responsibilities, but recognize there is perception of this, particularly in commercial and recreational fisheries. DFO did not directly respond to this part of the recommendation or the perceptions or concerns that underlie it.
Conservation must be a primary objective: Again from DFO's point of view this is a problem of perception, not substance.
There is a difference between recognition of intent and confidence in success. In 1995, run sizes were significantly overestimated, and fishing effort was sharply curtailed-As a result, public confidence in DFO's ability to achieve its conservation goals have been underestimated.
I can attest to that.
While escapement targets are above levels necessary to preserve the runs in aggregate, they are not in themselves necessarily adequate to preserve weaker stocks.
DFO did not achieve its escapement targets because it overestimated run size both pre-season and in-season-DFO was not always able to curtail fishing effort as much as required.
Failure to meet these targets, even if it does not place the resource-in aggregate-at risk, does point to the challenge of ensuring that DFO's conservation goals are achieved.
The unprecedented poor returns in 1995 suggest that DFO may also need to reconsider the targets it aims to meet. There is the longstanding concern about the diminution of weak stocks and the growing number of strong stocks-Making conservation a top priority requires reconsideration of their targets themselves and not just how they might be more consistently achieved.
Those are comments to the first recommendation. The second recommendation:
We recommend that DFO take immediate steps to initiate a process of planning for the future of the fishery, addressing all critical problems affecting conservation and sustainability, through an ongoing consultative forum. Among the problems to be considered would be over-capitalization, user-group allocation and ensuring equitable treatment under the law.
Comments to this:
Fleet reduction, in itself, will not address the fundamental problem underlying over-capitalization of the fleet-the common property nature of the commercial fleet.
The intersectoral allocation issue may not get resolved as planned. It is not clear whether a supportable framework will in fact be developed and implemented.
To date, DFO has not established a broad, multi-stakeholder consultative process to plan for the future and address critical problems affecting conservation and sustainability. DFO has not identified the responsibilities and composition it should have, nor its relationship to existing processes.
The third recommendation:
We recommend that DFO and PSC adopt a risk aversion management strategy because of the great uncertainty on stock estimates, in season catch estimates and environmental problems. Conservation goals must be achieved before any other priorities are addressed.
A risk averse strategy has not yet been developed. We found in our evaluation that DFO's actions were not the result of an explicit, well-defined risk averse management strategy, but rather were a response to the unprecedented events of the 1995 fishery.
DFO's actions were not based on a well-defined risk averse management strategy. The question of how DFO defines risk averse and how risk averse is expected to promote conservation must be addressed. Without this clarity there is no way to test if DFO's activities are in fact guided by well conceived and well defined strategy or whether their activities in themselves define what DFO means by risk averse.
The fourth recommendation:
We recommend that DFO, in conjunction with provincial authorities, First Nations, commercial and recreational fishing groups implement (both in marine and in-river areas) a revised system to ensure that catch information is timely and reliable, given that accurate counting and timely reporting of catch are fundamental to conservation. The system must also include a more stringent paper trail. There must be stricter control of landing and sales slips and a retention of sales slips with fish through to retail sales or export.
We recommend that DFO explore the application of new technology to collect information on stock levels in ocean areas in order to supplement catch statistics.
They made recommendations on institutional arrangements. We recommend that DFO develop better co-ordinated, inter-party communications among its staff and between staff and PSC, First Nations, commercial and recreational fishing groups with a greater degree of co-operation aimed at enhanced in-season management and post-season evaluation and at fostering working arrangements among all parties, and facilitate clearer and more transparent management and allocation policies.
The recommendations are an institutional arrangement and there are a number. We recommend that DFO and PSC give First Nations greater and more meaningful access to and involvement in the management process.
Quality management principles is another area. We recommend that DFO make a commitment to quality management principles in the management of fixed stocks by specific region and in this context for the third party quality auditing organization be contracted to provide ongoing services.
There is a litany of recommendations and a litany of where DFO has fallen short in meeting these recommendations.
I recommend to the House that the department again reviews all of these recommendations and the shortfalls so that, indeed, what is in the bill today will better reflect the well founded concerns and act accordingly.
In conclusion, I would like to put forward an amendment from the Reform Party. I move that the amendment be amended by adding:
"and that the committee report back to the House no later than June 19, 1997".