House of Commons Hansard #3 of the 37th Parliament, 3rd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was beef.

Topics

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

All those in favour of the amendment to the amendment will please say yea.

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Yea.

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

All those opposed will please say nay.

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

Some hon. members

Nay.

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

In my opinion the nays have it.

And more than five members having risen:

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

5:40 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

Call in the members.

(The House divided on the amendment to the amendment, which was negatived on the following division:)

Resumption of debate on Address in ReplySpeech from the Throne

6:15 p.m.

The Speaker

I declare the amendment to the amendment negatived.

It being 6:16 p.m., the House will now proceed to the consideration of private member's business as listed on today's Order Paper.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:15 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Loyola Hearn Progressive Conservative St. John's West, NL

moved:

Motion M-136

That, in the opinion of this House, the government should take immediate action to extend custodial management over the Nose and Tail of the Grand Banks and of the Flemish Cap.

Mr. Speaker, let me thank the member for Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough for seconding this motion.

As many members will recall, during the last session we debated this motion. Like many others, it died on the Order Paper but it has been brought back in its entirety. Instead of being in the second hour of debate, we are starting all over again and we will have one hour of debate now and the second hour sometime in the near future.

It is also a bit ironic tonight that we are talking about preserving our fishery when around us, I understand in the gallery, there are many people who have been affected by the BSE problem right across the country. Many of us think it is a western problem but it is a Canadian problem. The destruction of our fishery is not an Atlantic Canadian problem, it is a Canadian problem, period. People on the west coast, in the north and near the Great Lakes realize what is happening to our fishery.

Tonight I will zero in on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. The fish that once were so abundant in that area had such a great effect on the economy of this great country of ours. In a nutshell, for those who are not aware of the area and the problem concerned, I will quickly explain as well and as plainly as I can the situation in which Canadians find themselves in relation to a renewable resource which, like our farming industry, has been totally and utterly neglected by the government.

When Canada joined Newfoundland in 1949, it found that we had abundant resources. In fact at the time we had the greatest groundfish resource in the world, the northern cod. For centuries people from Canada, from Europe and of course from Newfoundland and Labrador fished that resource. They fished it carefully, knowing what happens when a natural resource is destroyed. Things changed and when Canada came together with us, it called the shots, but it was also supposed to accept the responsibilities. It did not and we have seen the fishery destroyed.

Perhaps a more ironic point is during these years we had a three mile limit I believe, which eventually extended to 12 miles and then finally to 200 miles. Even when we had no limit, foreign boats were fishing inside our waters. In the early days the fishing was with hooks and lines on the Grand Banks. The city of St. John's all around the waterfront was filled with what we used to call the tall ships. The Portuguese and the Spaniards, who fished according to the historic agreements, the international agreements we had with them, would land in St. John's and take on supplies. They would come in out of storms. They appreciated how well they were treated that they, speaking of the Portuguese, presented St. John's with a huge statue which they carried through the streets. It still is there in the Basilica of St. John the Baptist in St. John's. Thousands of fishermen lined up to walk in the procession to show appreciation for the way they were treated by Newfoundlanders.

Things changed. The 200 mile limit that was finally established did not protect our resource. Fish swim. Canada is not unique in the world but perhaps in our case we have the most lucrative grounds that extend beyond any 200 mile limit.

The continental shelf off the Atlantic coast of Newfoundland and Labrador extends beyond 200 miles. When the 200 mile limit was put in, there were a couple of major sections, basically like points, extending outside that limit. They are referred to as the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks, because really they are extensions of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Those points are in international waters.

We are supposed to have an organization called the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization, or NAFO. This organization allocates quotas to other fishing countries, the 19 countries that have historic rights or treaty rights with our country. Nobody pays any attention to it, unfortunately. Quotas are allocated based upon the scientific information as it relates to the size of the stock. Many of the countries just go out there, and there is an objection they can raise saying, “We do not agree with the quotas set and we are going to catch whatever we want”. This is what has been happening.

Many of these nations are referred to as rogue nations and they fly flags of convenience on their ships. We in this House are well aware of that. We know all about flags of convenience. I am not sure who owns all the boats; we might check into that too. However, these countries just blatantly rape the stocks off our coast.

We have for years, particularly over the last couple of years, requested that Canada take some control over this fishing resource. And let me thank sincerely the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, the chair and the members, from all parties, some of whom are here tonight, who have unanimously supported the request for Canada to take some control over this fishing resource.

One might ask what this all means. One might say that we had a few fish, that they are not as plentiful as they were, but we are making a lot of money on crab and shrimp. The fishery has changed somewhat, and because our ground fishery has practically been destroyed, the emphasis is now on crab and shrimp, lucrative species. Right now concerns are already being flagged about that resource, again because of the way it is being managed, particularly by government.

However, I am going to list for members some startling statistics. As far as we know, the first evidence mentioning the concern that our stocks were diminishing goes back to around 1968. The famous fishery scientist Sir Wilfred Templeman mentioned at that time that he had concerns about the state of our stocks. Since 1497, when John Cabot first came over and rediscovered the Atlantic coast, Newfoundland, for almost 500 years people had been fishing, yet the stocks had remained consistent. Around the 1960s people began to see that we were starting to overfish. And of course that was nothing compared to what is happening today.

Concerns were raised in 1968. In 1973, our stocks were starting to show some decline. If we had taken the scientific advice at that time, if we had learned from those who were starting to point out that there was a problem, if governments had taken the stand they should have taken and shown the intestinal fortitude government should show to protect a Canadian renewable resource, we would still have those stocks. If they had not been traded off so we could sell our wheat and our cars and encourage foreign countries to invest here, we would still have those stocks. It was, “Come here and set up a car factory and we will give you fish off Newfoundland”. That was a constant deal.

If only we had protected that stock. I am just going to let the House know, in today's figures, what would have happened if we had protected that stock. The return from our ground fishery today is practically nil. Most of our income from this industry, which is somewhere near $1 billion, give or take, is from shrimp and crab, two species which then no one even wanted to touch. Nobody wanted to hear about them.

However, if we had kept the 1973 stocks as they were, today to the people of Canada they would be worth approximately $3,327,500,000, over $3.3 billion in today's dollars, if we had just been able to preserve the amount of fish we had back in 1973. There are about 25,000 people who would have been directly and indirectly affected by the loss of that amount of product. So on top of what we have today, on top of a billion dollar industry in crab and shrimp, and on top of the number of people working in the industry, we could add to that 25,000 jobs, and these would be much better paying jobs than the eight, ten or twelve weeks that we see quite often today. Many of these were year round jobs; 52 weeks of the year with two and three shifts going at major plants. We would have added to our economy, on top of today's billion dollars, $3.3 billion.

Imagine what that would do to the economy of Newfoundland and Labrador. Imagine what that would do to the economy of Canada.

People say that we have oil and we do not want fish. Oil, like minerals, disappears. Once we take them out of the ground, that is it. They are non-renewable. To make things worse, when we started to develop Hibernia, for instance, there was an agreement that it would be spread over so many years at a certain rate of development. On a number of occasions now, the government has agreed to or has let the companies accelerate that development. Who is the big loser? The province, because we are the ones who would benefit somewhat from it.

We get very little from those resources. They are clawed back again by the federal government. That is why today Newfoundland, with the richest resources in the country, and with the smallest population, is what we call a have not province. I say to people, “Please look at what Newfoundland has”. I know that as more and more people travel there, they are starting to ask why we are called a have not province. They say we have so much: the minerals, the oil, the fishery and the forestry. And there is tourism galore. It is the best place in the country to go if one wants to enjoy oneself.

But for every dollar we take in through revenues and royalties, the federal government claws back anywhere from 75¢ to 90¢. It is like a person on social welfare going out and making a hundred bucks. Everyone says to get back in the workforce because it is great stuff and then they take the hundred dollars off his cheque. The person then asks what is the sense; it is just as well to stay home and do nothing.

We need a complete and utter change in our philosophy in how we deal with our provinces and in how we deal with resource development.

Tonight in the House we are debating two issues: fish and, of course, agriculture. They are two resources that are renewable, two resources that if protected by government, a government that understands and listens, a government that makes the right laws and rules, they are resources that will be just as good 100 years from now as they are today. I use the example, which goes back only 30 years, of the difference it would have made if we had protected that resource.

We are looking at how we balance budgets and we usually cut. We look to the worker and we reduce the workforce. It just makes us less productive. It puts fewer dollars into the economy. Let us look at how we can best benefit from our resources. Let us look at our raw resources. Let us look at the maximum potential and let us get there.

This is an issue we could talk on for months, but there are others here who are well aware of the issue. Colleagues in this House have familiarized themselves with this issue. I look forward to their comments.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Liberal

Wayne Easter Liberal Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, I enjoyed the hon. member's remarks. In fact, as chair of the standing committee at the time the hearings were held, I can vouch for what the hon. member says.

The fact is that fishermen and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians in general certainly feel that allowing the foreign fleets on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap is a case in which the nation as a whole, Canada as a whole, is letting them down and allowing the fisheries resource to be abused.

My question to the hon. member is about this. The arguments that we as a committee got back from the Government of Canada for it not adopting the report as we wished were along the lines that it should be left up to NAFO or that it legally cannot be done in the international arena to go with custodial management. I wonder what the hon. member's views on that point might be. What would he say to refute that argument?

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:30 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Loyola Hearn Progressive Conservative St. John's West, NL

Mr. Speaker, let me recognize the job that the hon. member who just spoke did as chair of the committee. As he said, he was chair of the committee for probably a year and a half when this issue was first introduced. He, along with the other members of the committee, solidly supported the motion that Canada take custodial management over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.

He wants to know what I think of the argument. It is too bad I cannot ask a question back to him. I would ask him what he really thinks of NAFO. Because I know, and I have heard him say it on a number of occasions. It is very similar to what is said by the unions, the fishermen, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the special all party committee, by everybody except the Minister of Fisheries and some of the key members of government. For whatever reason, they are protecting the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, probably, which told us quite plainly, “Please do not rock the boat”.

If the government does not show some leadership in relation to protecting our resource, how do we expect Norway or Finland or Iceland or Denmark or anybody else to do it? Many of these countries have concerns about their own resources.

I believe the time is right, even within NAFO, to get people together to agree upon a protective mechanism. But somebody has to be charge. It is adjacent to our shores. The agency that should be in charge here is the Government of Canada. If it is properly presented, I think we would get international support.

They do not have the guts to do it.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:35 p.m.

NDP

Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I thank my hon. colleague from Newfoundland and Labrador for his presentation today. As part of the fisheries committee, I was very proud to, on behalf of our party, support the recommendation of the custodial management of the nose and tail of the Grand Banks.

For those who might be listening, the actual name of the Grand Banks is the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. They are adjacent to Newfoundland and Labrador, but the mistake made in 1977 when we created the 200 mile limit was that we forgot to extend it to the Flemish Cap and to the nose and tail. If that had been included, we probably would not be having this discussion today.

The member is absolutely correct. If only the government had any sense of duty or loyalty to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. We pay 50% of the cost of NAFO right now. I would like him to estimate exactly how he and the people of Newfoundland and Labrador, in terms of government, would see custodial management happen if we did indeed take over.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:35 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Loyola Hearn Progressive Conservative St. John's West, NL

Mr. Speaker, again, it all happened in 1949, as I said. When we came into Canada, we brought the Grand Banks. Then it was just the Province of Newfoundland, not the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the fishing banks off the coast were referred to as the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, meaning ours, the Grand Banks O-F, of, Newfoundland.

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland. Canada has always looked upon them as just the Grand Banks O-F-F, off, Newfoundland. There is a difference. They say O-F-F, with the extra F, so that they are off Newfoundland. We say O-F, with the F off. They are our banks, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.

Canada has to take responsibility--now that we are part of this great country--within NAFO. As for the other countries, as I mentioned, that make up NAFO, many of them are very responsible countries. Consequently, if we were to make the proper approach and show some leadership--and in fact the inquiries have shown there has been very little connection between the minister and NAFO--I think the cooperation would be there to let us manage, on their behalf, the stocks of our coast.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:35 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

A friendly reminder colleagues to be careful with the use of the word “off”.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:35 p.m.

Hillsborough P.E.I.

Liberal

Shawn Murphy LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

Mr. Speaker, as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and member for Parliament for Hillsborough, Prince Edward Island, I would like to take this opportunity to say a few words in this important debate.

First, I would like to begin by thanking the hon. member for St. John's West for his ongoing interest in this matter. He certainly put a lot of time, effort and energy into this matter over the last number of years. It is important not only to his native province, but to Canada as a whole. As a fellow Atlantic Canadian, I certainly share his frustration.

I would also like to thank the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for its report on this issue. The Government of Canada welcomed the work of the committee and gave serious consideration to the report and the recommendations made in the report.

Indeed, the Government of Canada fully recognizes that foreign overfishing of straddling stocks on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap is a very serious problem. Such blatant non-compliance with NAFO regulations has a direct impact on our coastal communities in Newfoundland, on the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and Canada as a whole, and by extension everyone who makes their living from the sea.

I share a lot of the facts, submissions and statements made by the hon. member for St. John's West. I associate myself with those remarks.

The minister takes this issue very seriously and is acting promptly. He has made a commitment to enhance our NAFO program. Shortly after his appointment, he visited the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. In actual fact he took a flight over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and saw first hand where the overfishing was taking place.

When in Newfoundland, he asked his officials for a proposal to deal with the overfishing problem. This proposal will include an increase in our at-sea presence in the NAFO regulatory area, a strategy to engage our allies within NAFO, work on organizational reform and the implementation of the United Nations fisheries agreement. A comprehensive strategy is now under consideration by the departmental officials.

The Government of Canada takes this issue very seriously. Just last month the Prime Minister discussed the whole issue of overfishing in international waters at the World Economic Forum.

However, the motion before the House today says that the Government of Canada should take immediate action to extend the custodial management over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap. To take immediate action is to turn our backs on the international community and the attendant societal, economic, political and perhaps even military ramifications that would occur.

The government is committed to working with our international partners to come to a satisfactory solution, but let me assure my colleagues that if these efforts fail, the government will then consider all its options.

It is for those reasons the government will not be supporting this motion today.

Canada needs the opportunity to effect change within the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization. We need to be an active participant in the management decisions about the fish stocks on which thousands of Canadians rely, and cooperating with our international partners yields results. The progress we made at the last NAFO meeting in September proves that we can make a difference by working with our international partners.

Clearly, we have to improve the situation. The government is vigorously making the case to our NAFO partners and there is an urgent need for vessels to follow NAFO's rules and for government to take action when these rules are violated.

We are making some progress in continuing to convince parties of the need for major reforms.

Canada's goal is to work with its partners throughout the industry and throughout the world to make improvements. This cooperative approach is the best one if we want to make lasting improvements.

There have been some recent developments. In November of last year Canada signed the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but more important on December 19 of last year the European Union and its 15 member states signed the United Nations agreement on the straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks. That is a very significant development that gives Canada all the attendant tools of this agreement which deals with conservation, enforcement, sustainability and cooperation. That agreement took effect on December 18 of last year, only six weeks ago. That is another tool at this country's disposal to deal with the issue on a unilateral basis. I am pleased that Canada is not alone in wanting these improvements.

In many meetings, nations like Iceland and Norway have expressed similar dissatisfaction with what is going on. They have also expressed a willingness to move forward on real, lasting change for the way our fish stocks are managed on the high seas. They recognize, as Canada does, our responsibilities: a responsibility to ensure that the rules of the fishery are being followed; a responsibility to ensure that those who do not follow the rules are punished; and a responsibility to make sustainable development a number one priority for the future.

I am confident that by working with our partners around the world, we can translate our shared commitment to the future of our fisheries into a reality. Using a diplomatic, multilateral approach is the first approach, but I want to make it clear that it is not the only approach. That is why I cannot support the hon. member's motion.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:45 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

There will be no questions or comments. Only the mover is allowed questions or comments.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:45 p.m.

Progressive Conservative

Peter MacKay Progressive Conservative Pictou—Antigonish—Guysborough, NS

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. Given the importance of the matter and given the fact that we have the parliamentary secretary here, perhaps we could ask for unanimous consent that he be allowed to take five minutes of questions and comments.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:45 p.m.

The Acting Speaker (Mr. Bélair)

Is there unanimous consent?

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:45 p.m.

Some hon. members

No.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:45 p.m.

Bloc

Jean-Yves Roy Bloc Matapédia—Matane, QC

Mr. Speaker, I would have liked for my colleagues, including my colleague for St. John's West, to be able to ask the parliamentary secretary some questions.

I am shocked by what we just heard. This problem has existed since Newfoundland joined Confederation in 1949. My colleagues opposite are well aware of this, as is my colleague who chaired the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. I want to call the parliamentary secretary to order. The Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans did not present the government with one report; it presented two.

A first report was presented on November 8, 2002, and a second one was presented more recently in March 2003. This latest report did, in fact, reiterate the standing committee's recommendations regarding the custodial management of the nose and tail of the GrandBanks and the Flemish Cap off the coast of Newfoundland.

The resource was abundant in 1949, when Newfoundland joined Confederation. Unfortunately for the people of Newfoundland, resource management and protection was handed over to an irresponsible government, the federal government.

This is still the case today. We are told that diplomacy will be employed and that efforts will be made to resolve the problem through NAFO, an organization that has never assumed its responsibilities and that has never operated as it should.

Everyone knows quite well that this approach will never result in a resolution. NAFO member states had one goal: to appropriate our resource, conserve it and use it for their own purposes. This has continued since 1949, and the federal government has never reacted once in a way that would have allowed conservation of our resource.

There is more. Perhaps my colleague from St. John's West did not mention it earlier. In 1992, there was a moratorium on cod. Consequently, in the early 1990s, everyone knew already that the resource was seriously threatened. The moratorium of the early 1990s was a disaster, as much for Newfoundland as for the Gaspé, one of many regions hard hit by this famous moratorium.

When we talk about the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap off the coast of Newfoundland, we are talking about overlapping resources in a basin that extends to the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

If the resource off the coast of Newfoundland is depleted, there is no doubt the resource in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and around the other Atlantic provinces will be seriously affected. In my opinion, this is the worst environmental disaster of the past century in Canada and Quebec.

A very plentiful resource has been depleted because of the irresponsible actions, and lack of vision, of a government. This government simply failed to take its responsibilities. That is what it was asked to do.

As the hon. member for St. John's West indicated earlier, the original three mile limit was extended to 12 miles and then to 200 miles, while still not protecting our resource.

Today, as the parliamentary secretary reminded us, we have, of course, the United Nations Fisheries Agreement, which the 15 members countries of the European Economic community have agreed to sign, finally giving it effect. That has taken a good many years.

The agreement being in effect is still no guarantee—and I call the attention of the hon. parliamentary secretary to this point—that his government will take its responsibilities. Here is the perfect case in point.

Another 600 or so jobs are slated to be cut at Fisheries and Oceans Canada. Naturally, one could tell me that is only a rumour, but where there is smoke, as they say.

To protect our resource, the department should not be facing these kinds of cut. On the contrary, it should be provided with the extra resources needed to conduct efficient monitoring so that we could see what is going on inside the 200 mile limit as well as outside. The United Nations Fisheries Agreement provides for the protection of what is called straddling stocks both inside and outside this 200 mile limit.

The government's response is that we cannot afford to protect the resource, but air resources could be increased. The minister said, “We may increase air surveillance”.

Will the Coast Guard have the means to respond when the time comes? The answer is no because the Coast Guard has been completely underfunded since 1993. Its equipment is starting to become obsolete. Money was invested in the Coast Guard after September 11, but only for security, not to protect the resource.

We experienced a moratorium in 1993 and we just went through another one with the cod fishery. They had 10 years to try to solve the problem and now we are no further ahead than we were 10 years ago.

I am supposed to believe that the federal government is going to assume its responsibilities and protect the resource. The federal government is finally going to make good on what it owes the people of the Maritimes and eastern Quebec. Indeed, that is its responsibility and it is precisely because of its lack of responsibility that people have been so hard hit in Newfoundland, the Gaspé Peninsula and the Maritimes.

They can try to sugar-coat things or give nice speeches, like the one the parliamentary secretary just delivered, but I do not, nor will I ever, believe a word of what they are saying.

As my colleague said, this affects all Canadians. In fact, the fisheries are managed just as badly on the west coast as on the east coast. There are just as many problems on the west coast as on the east coast when it comes to managing the fisheries.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans is about the worst system there could be for managing and protecting the resource. From one ocean to another, the members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans keep hearing that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans does not listen to the fishers, the plant workers, or the people who process the resource. The government does not want input because it wants to manage the resource its own way and it is managing it very badly.

I want to reiterate my support for the hon. member for St. John's-West and his championing of this issue. As a member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, I remain convinced that the recommendations contained in both reports, in 1982 and 2003, were correct and that they should have been implemented by the government, contrary to its reaction, especially when the first report was issued. The government automatically rejected that report and did not even take the time to read it. Therefore we were unable to take action on the international stage because, in a way, we shot ourselves in the foot.

In the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans we were extremely disappointed, and with good reason. All members of this committee reiterated the report's recommendations in 2003. These are the recommendations we want to see implemented and put into practice.

The Speech from the Throne talks about the democratic deficit in the context of the House of Commons. I think the government had two fine opportunities to partially rectify the democratic deficit by accepting the unanimous recommendations of all members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. And if it had done so, at least part of the solution could have been put into effect and the resource might be better managed today.

Two years later, we see that this government has done absolutely nothing. I do not believe that in two more years, if the same government is still in power, something will be done.

I reiterate my support for the hon. member for St. John's West, and salute him as well.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

6:55 p.m.

NDP

Peter Stoffer NDP Sackville—Musquodoboit Valley—Eastern Shore, NS

Mr. Speaker, my thanks to the member for St. John's West and all members of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for this recommendation.

Those of us who went to Newfoundland and Labrador on repeated occasions heard this from the fishermen and from the previous Liberal government in Newfoundland and Labrador. The Conservative and NDP opposition parties in Newfoundland and Labrador were unanimous that this is what we should be doing.

I want to nudge the parliamentary secretary who I know is a descent person. The problem parliamentary secretaries have, when they represent the department, is that they bring bureaucratic notes with them and they read them.

I would like to see the parliamentary secretary go to St. John's West, to the riding of the member who moved the motion, and hear what he says when he is there. The reality is that he said the government would not support the motion. Does that mean that the Minister of Natural Resources, who is from Newfoundland and Labrador, will not be supporting the motion?

The Minister of Natural Resources, when he was a regular member of Parliament on our committee, fully supported and in fact actively argued vehemently for the motion and for the recommendation to happen. Now that he is in cabinet, will he be here for the vote? Will a free vote be allowed or will he skip out?

This is something we will watching carefully because in 1998 we presented the east coast report by the fisheries committee. We moved consensus of that report in the House. Nine Liberals signed that report. When we had a vote on that report in the House, those nine Liberals voted against their report. It is hypocrisy every single time.

I remind the parliamentary secretary that we do not have much time left. Every single scientific status report of those stocks show them dwindling. They are in a precarious position.

It took the government over 23 years to sign the law of the sea. Why would any of us on this side of the House have any confidence at all that the government cares about Newfoundland and Labradorians, the fishing industry itself or the stock itself?

He said the Government of Canada does not want to turn its back on the international community but has absolutely no problem turning its back on Newfoundland and Labradorians. We will come back and haunt the government on that in the next election. The election can be called sooner. We'll be ready and waiting.

There are a couple of other concerns. The merger of the Coast Guard and DFO in 1995 has been an unmitigated disaster. We have 1,600 people working for the Department of Fisheries and Oceans at 200 Kent Street and nobody is fishing for cod or lobster in the Rideau Canal.

Those 1,600 people may be fine people, but I can assure you, Mr. Speaker, the centralization of that office needs to be torn down, broken down and those people should be put where the resource is. That would give confidence back to the industry. Maybe, instead of having decisions come from Ottawa to the water, we for once could have decisions on the fishery come from the water and go to Ottawa, which is exactly how it should be.

There is another agreement called UNFA. It should be torn apart and thrown away. The international community laughs at Canada. It comes here to rape and pillage our stocks. We used to have observers on board the ships. Try to get an unedited observer report from one of those international expeditions. It is literally impossible.

When Mr. Baker was the chair of the committee, we got one but it was so blacked out and edited, it meant absolutely nothing to us. After the agreement, they had to get more observers on board. Now they are saying, get rid of the observers and put a black box on these international vessels. All a black box will do, if we have anybody monitoring it, is tell us where the boat is. It does not tell us what is in the boat, how much fish it is raping and pillaging from the ocean.

May I remind the House that the OLGA was caught a few years ago for oil pollution. When it came into St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador, it had 49 metric tonnes of moratorium cod in its hold. What happened? We could not do anything about it. We had to let the ship go because international rules stated that the flag state had to be the one that metes out any punishment to the captain and crew.

When we were in Iceland, we found the Olga . A Russian ship was in Iceland. We have no idea what happened to the fish. It was a fluke that we caught the

Olga.

However, how many fishing vessels are out there now cheating the system. We all know Mr. Tobin. When he was here, he had the little net saying that the turbot are hanging by their fingernails. It was a great presentation. It was very well done.

However, the Liberal government still does not get it. This is a unanimous recommendation by the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans. There were nine Liberals on that committee. They all agreed with the opposition that this is what we should do.

I do not have confidence that the government will even think about this. It will just ignore it. The government's answer to solutions in the fishery is delay every single time. It is absolutely incredible.

In terms of observance and enforcement, the morale of our Coast Guard, the great men and women of the Coast Guard, is completely broken right now. What do we hear from the department? It says that 600 positions will be eliminated within that department.

The government is basically saying to forget fisheries patrols, forget observers, and to forget about it. It is going to rely on the good graces of the Spaniards, the Portuguese and everyone else to come in and rape and pillage the stocks. It will continue to talk and hopefully it will have a glass of wine and a nice chat, but nothing will get done.

I can assure the House that if the discussion was in Ontario, if the situation was reversed, we would have action from the government. Unfortunately, Newfoundland and Labrador only has seven representatives. Many friends in the parliamentary system across the country support the men and women of Newfoundland and Labrador on this important recommendation.

Basically, we will actually be saving the international community a lot of money. We are not saying to the foreign vessels to go away, get lost and never be seen again. We are saying that they can come in. They can fish their historical quota. All it means is that Canadians are going to observe what they have on board those vessels. We are going to ensure that what they catch is exactly what they are allowed to have. That is it.

We already pay 50% of NAFO's costs and it is not working. Foreign fishing vessels are taking advantage of us because we do not have patrols and we have a government that is extremely weak when it comes to enforcements or discussions of this nature.

We as a committee are constantly frustrated by government delays. Again, the government does not want to turn its back on the international community, but it is willing to turn its back on fishermen and their families. That is a sin.

We are recommending custodial management. Let us take control of those stocks. Let us say to the international community that it can still fish, but we are going to check what it has. That is all. If we do that, I assure the House that those stocks will come back and they will rebound.

The beneficiaries of that will not just be Newfoundland and Labrador. It will be the international community. If it keeps going the way it is going, years from now this discussion will be muted because there will be no fish left.

Years ago, a former Liberal leader, Pierre Trudeau, was asked a question about fisheries and his answer was “The problem with fish is that they swim”. Yes, they do. The reality is we need to have enforcement out on the water. We believe that Canadians are the ones to do that. If we were to do that, we could assure the people of Newfoundland and Labrador that their initial resource, their offshore resource, belongs to the people of Newfoundland and Labrador and for that matter to all Canadians.

On behalf of our party, I again thank the hon. member for St. John's West and his party for bringing this motion forward. We in the federal NDP and our provincial colleagues across the country completely support the motion.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

7:05 p.m.

Liberal

Bill Matthews Liberal Burin—St. George's, NL

Mr. Speaker, let me begin by thanking the member for St. John's West for once again bringing this issue before the House for debate. I want to thank members who have contributed this evening to this very important discussion.

I want to say to my friend from the NDP from the outset that I do not want to blame the foreigners for all of the problems with our fishing resources. They are certainly a very important factor but there are other factors as well that have led to the demise of many of our fish stocks.

I wonder if members would consider a vote in the House some day to turn over to NAFO the management of the exploding seal herds off our coast. It has done such a dismal job of managing the resources in the NAFO regulated areas that if it took over the management of the seal herd, we would not have about 10 million seals off our shores eating tonnes and tonnes of fish resources.

I want it on the record that I will support this motion. I have been a consistent supporter of Canada taking action to extend custodial management over the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and the Flemish Cap for very good reason. I listened to hon. members such as the parliamentary secretary, but they should go along the south coast of Newfoundland and Labrador and visit communities such as Port aux Basques, Rose Blanche, Burnt Island, Isle aux Morts, Burgeo, Ramea. All the way along the coast people once worked for 12 months a year in a very productive and prosperous fishing industry. A significant outmigration has taken place and today the age of the people left in those communities is not very comforting. Those communities were founded on the fishery. People spent their lives working in the fishery.

The member for St. John's West rightfully said when Canada joined Newfoundland, and if it had really happened that way, things may have been different today. The Government of Canada was given the management of our fisheries resource when we joined Confederation and successive federal governments have failed in their management responsibilities. I would like to say to the hon. member for St. John's West, it was a former member of St. John's West, the former minister of fisheries, John Crosbie, who in 1992 announced a shutdown, a moratorium on our northern cod fishery.

Successive federal governments have failed on this issue. Having said that, it is incumbent on the government of the day to deal with this issue. People living in those communities who want to continue to make a living there have run out of patience. Canada has a great record in the world for diplomacy and peacekeeping, but the people in those communities are tired of diplomacy and have lost patience on this issue.

There is only one thing that will cause a positive change in the NAFO regulatory areas. That would be a Canadian management regime where Canada would set the total allowable catch, where Canada would have observers on the vessels and we would enforce any violations in those zones.

There is a misconception that the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans has recommended that we kick the foreigners out of the territory. That is not what we are recommending. We are recommending that Canada manage the resource in those areas or that those countries which have traditionally fished the areas for centuries be allowed to fish their traditional share of whatever the total allowable catch would be.

Nothing else will work. The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization has been in existence for 25 years. For the last 10 years or so there have been some serious flaws in the NAFO management. We attend the NAFO meetings annually and talk diplomacy. We ask them to be good boys and girls. They tell us they will be but in another year's time we find that nothing has improved. What is happening in the meantime is that those once prolific fish resources, as the member for St. John's West has said, the greatest protein resource in the world, are being decimated.

It is 2004 and with the environmental concerns, concerns, the concerns about the ecosystem and other issues that we hear about in this place on a daily basis, imagine that as Canadians and as a government we are content to sit here and watch this go on and on. This is a great resource, a world resource. It is a protein resource not just for Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada, not just for Canada but for this great world where there is a shortage of protein.

I listened to the parliamentary secretary say on behalf of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans that we have to be diplomatic, that we have to show more patience and maybe it will work. I do not think that the people in the communities I represent have the time to be patient any more. They are tired of being diplomatic. They want someone to take charge of the issue and it is time we took charge of the issue.

I said that the foreigners are not all the problem. I mentioned the seal herd, the eight to ten million seals that consume something like a tonne of fish a year per seal. With all due respect to my friend from the NDP, if only he would show the same concern about dealing with the seal population as he showed about dealing with the foreigners. We can deal with the foreigners and we can deal with the seals and we can deal with some other conservation issues because it is going to take a combination of all those to bring back that resource. It is not going to happen by kicking the foreigners off the banks. We need more than that.

We need to deal with the seal issue, I say to members of the New Democratic Party, whom I have accused at times of caring more about seals than they care about the people of Newfoundland and Labrador. I do not say that lightly. I hear the talk about a coming election and how they are going to go on the campaign trail. Well, I invite all members of the NDP to come down to Newfoundland and Labrador and tell the people that they care more about seals than they care about the people who are going hungry in those communities.

Let us call a spade a spade. If we are serious about addressing the issue, we must deal with NAFO, we must deal with the foreigners, we must deal with the seals. As well, there are things that we must clean up in our own back yard. It is not only foreigners who have caused the problem. We have to take some of the responsibility ourselves.

If we are really serious about dealing with this issue, let us be mature. Let us be sincere about it. Let us hear the NDP tomorrow get up and say that they are prepared to deal with an exploding seal population where every seal eats a tonne of fish a year. Let us hear that if they want to deal with the issues in Newfoundland and Labrador, or do they just want to pay lip service to it?

I want to provide my colleague from Newfoundland with some time so I will conclude by saying that I have continuously supported this issue. Custodial management, in my view, is the way to go. I call upon the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Prime Minister of the country to come to the table in a very serious manner so that we deal with it and we do have a custodial management regime on the nose and tail and the Flemish Cap.

FisheriesPrivate Members' Business

7:10 p.m.

Liberal

Gerry Byrne Liberal Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL

Mr. Speaker, we certainly are setting the tone here for the third session of the 37th Parliament, because there is a great debate occurring in the House. I want to thank and applaud the hon. member for St. John's West, for on the third day of the third session of the 37th Parliament we are debating an issue which is of vital importance to Atlantic Canada. He has used his time and energy to craft this motion. This debate suits the House very well. It is setting the tone.

I want to say to the hon. member and to all members of the House that we certainly have a big issue but we also have a big opportunity and it is up to us to seize this opportunity. We have a growing basis of support not only from colleagues within the House but internationally as well. As my colleague from Burin--St. George's pointed out, there is a growing understanding that we have a responsibility not only as those who are patriots of a nation, but those who are stewards of a resource internationally to protect and to conserve.

That is not occurring on the Grand Banks. It is not occurring on the nose and tail. It is up to us as international stewards to take ownership, to use the law of the sea, to use whatever instrument is available to us. I will be supporting this motion when it comes time for a vote.