Debates of Oct. 21st, 1998

John Duncan Vancouver Island North, BC

In the last five years, on the west coast of Canada, how many licences have been applied for, have been issued, have been denied, and have been revoked by the minister under the regulations to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act allowing foreign fishing boats into Canadian waters, broken down by year and by foreign country and by reasons that the licences were applied for and by reasons that the licences were issued?

David Anderson Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

The attached tables list the licences issued under the coastal fisheries protection regulations allowing foreign vessels into Canadian waters and ports on the west coast of Canada:

1. Table I—Foreign vessels licences issued by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, DFO, Pacific region, during the period 1993 to 1997. The licences issued to joint venture processing and transport vessels for participation in the Pacific hake over-the-side fishery were under section 5(1)(a) of the coastal fisheries protection regulations. The licences issued for port privileges were under section 5(1)(a) of the coastal fisheries protection regulations primarily to obtain fuel and supplies. The three licences issued to New Zealand in 1997 were under force majeure.

2. Table II—Import landing licences issued to U.S. fishing vessels during the period 1996 to 1998. These licences are issued under section 5(1.5)(a) of the coastal fisheries protection regulations.

DFO Pacific region maintains records only of the licences issued. None of these were revoked. Records of telephone inquiries by agents of non-qualified countries under the coastal fisheries protection regulations are not kept; most of these were on behalf of U.S. fishing vessels seeking entry into Canadian waters for the Pacific hake fishery or to deliver groundfish to Canadian ports; callers were informed that formal requests for entry would be denied.

Table I

Foreign Vessel Licences Issued*

1997

Joint Venture Processing Vessels

Poland 7

Joint Venture Transport Vessels

Poland 3 Russia 4 Latvia 3 Bahamas 1

Port Privileges

Russia 2 Poland 2 New Zealand 3

1996

Joint Venture Processing Vessels

Poland 10

Joint Venture Transport Vessels

Poland 5 Russia 6 Cyprus 1 Ukraine 1

Port Privileges

Russia 1

1995

Joint Venture Processing Vessels

Nil

Joint Venture Transport Vessels

Nil

Port Privileges

Nil

1994

Joint Venture Processing Vessels

Poland 7 Chinese 7

Joint Venture Transport Vessels

Poland 4 Latvia 2 Japanese 1

Port Privileges

Nil

1993

Joint Venture Processing Vessels

Poland 6

Joint Venture Transport Vessels

Poland 4 Japanese 2 Bahamas 1 Russia 2

Port Privileges

Nil

• 1998 statistics not yet available

Peter Adams Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining questions be allowed to stand.

Peter Adams Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, with respect to Motion P-38, I ask that it be transferred for debate.

Peter Adams Peterborough, ON

Mr. Speaker, I ask that the remaining Notices of Motions for the Production of Papers be allowed to stand.

Randy White Langley—Abbotsford, BC

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to talk about Bill C-43, the Canada customs and revenue agency. I want to talk a bit about revenues and how they are applied and a bit about the agency. I also want to give a good example of application of revenues.

The government collects a lot of money and what it does with the money is important. I want to make a point about the difference between collecting money and spending it wisely.

I recently wrote a letter to the solicitor general about how the government spends those revenues. I want to relate a bit of that to the House. My concern was that the government has actually been cutting back on the services of the RCMP in British Columbia by way of budget cuts amounting to about $8.5 million. That does not seem like a lot of money, I suppose, in that the government takes in revenues of billions upon billions, $120 billion a year approximately, but it is a lot of money in British Columbia and it is a lot of money for the policing services.

Just recently members of the RCMP were advised that they had to eliminate their overtime and their training. They had to ground their airplanes. They had to stop running their boats. These are pretty basic functions for the RCMP in British Columbia.

The result of all this is that criminals have a free-for-all in some cases because the RCMP is not even available during the evening, after hours, to look at situations involving investigations of criminal activities in drugs. British Columbia has a serious drug problem.

With that in mind I wrote to the solicitor general and said that it was rather ironic that the government had to cut back $8.5 million in those operations but had a $3.5 billion surplus. Let us put this $3.5 billion into perspective. That is a three and a half thousand million dollar surplus, yet the RCMP has to cutback on its operations.

I said we should look at it again to see if there is anything the government is spending money on that is unnecessary and could have possibly been applied to the RCMP to help it continue to be efficient in its operations. It took me about 10 minutes. I want to relate how some of our revenues are being applied. For instance, we have a little bit of a debt of about $580 billion.