Debates of May 12th, 2004

Shawn Murphy Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for allowing me to rise in the House today to speak on this issue. As Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, I appreciate the opportunity to add my thoughts to what has already been said earlier on this bill by the minister and to show my support for Bill C-33.

I would also like to add my thanks to the members of the standing joint committee, co-chaired by the hon. member for Surrey Central, for their interest in this issue, and their very hard work and efforts in bring their concerns forward.

I have carefully read about and listened to the committee's concerns. They have done a lot on this issue, as has been stated in the House by the minister and I believe others. That committee has reported to Parliament and its report, issues, concerns and recommendations have been taken very seriously.

Specifically, the committee has made a case for the need for greater clarity and certainty in the Fisheries Act. That, it is my submission, is exactly what Bill C-33 would do. It would provide greater clarity and certainty on matters of legislative authority with respect to regulations that govern Canada's aboriginal fishery. The Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has listened and the government is responding.

The bill would expressly provide that the governor in council could make regulations respecting the method of designation where a licence was issued to an aboriginal group. It would expressly provide that breach of a term or condition of a licence issued under the Fisheries Act would be an offence.

The bill proposes a number of amendments. It would amend the Fisheries Act to expressly make compliance with licence terms and conditions a requirement under the act. It provides that the terms and conditions of prescribed licences issued to aboriginal organizations prevail over other regulations. It defines for greater certainty the term “aboriginal organization”. It would permit the governor in council to prescribe an entity as an aboriginal organization. It provides express regulation making authority for designation provisions.

What we are offered today is an opportunity to clarify the Fisheries Act. Before we act on this opportunity, I would like at this time to highlight the government's longstanding, and I should add ongoing, efforts to strengthen the involvement of aboriginal groups in the management of fisheries on all three of our coasts.

Over the years many programs and initiatives have evolved to allow the Government of Canada to negotiate with and work cooperatively with aboriginal groups in the management of a regulated fisheries.

As everyone in the House knows, in 1990 the Supreme Court of Canada issued a landmark ruling in the Sparrow decision. In that case the Supreme Court found that where an aboriginal group had the right to fish for food, social and ceremonial purposes, it would take priority after conservation over other uses of that resource. The court also indicated the importance of consulting with aboriginal groups when their fishing rights might be affected.

In response to this decision, DFO launched the aboriginal fisheries strategy. Among other things, the strategy provides aboriginal groups with an opportunity to participate in the management of fisheries, thereby improving conservation, management and enhancement of the resource.

I would like to step back and talk about the aboriginal fisheries strategy. When the Sparrow decision came down, followed by the other decision on the east coast, the Marshall decision, there were certainly questions raised as to how these particular court decisions would be handled by society in general.

There was a certain feeling in the fisheries community, and I guess society as a whole, that we would have chaos in the fisheries industry. The principles of the fisheries industry as they are governed, conservation of the resource, sustainability of the industry and the whole precautionary principle would give way, and we would have chaos and things would be very troublesome.

That is not the case. This has been going on for quite a few years now. I am a little more familiar with the issues on the east coast rather than the west coast. I applaud the people who implemented the strategy. In my opinion, this is a strategy that has worked. As everyone in this House knows, not everything in Ottawa works; however, this strategy has worked. I want to congratulate everyone who was involved in the implementation of the strategy.

On the east coast we have, I believe, 34 native bands. There are presently agreements with 32 of the 34 bands. Unfortunately, with respect to one band, in the dying days, March 31 to be exact, the agreement just did not come about. It is a little unfortunate but again, 32 of the 34 bands have signed agreements.

In each case, the band has been given access to the fishery. It has been done on a coordinated basis and these principles of sustainabilty of the resource, conservation of the resource, and the sustainability of the industry have been adhered to.

Again, everything is not perfect. There have been a few problems along the way. As recently as last week, I talked with the executive director of the Prince Edward Island Fishermen's Association. I asked him specifically if in his experience the program had worked. He was very unequivocal. He said that it had definitely worked. He had nothing but good to say about the way this program had been implemented in that province.

Looking back, it has been a real credit to the officials in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans but also, and perhaps more importantly, to the band chiefs who negotiated these agreements.

My province, I believe, has 28 lobster fleets and two snow crab fleets. Nova Scotia and New Brunswick would have many times this amount, probably in the hundreds. I do not have the exact number. When a community, whether it is native or non-native, has three or four lobster fleets and maybe a snow crab fleet, or another fleet, it not only provides employment and economic development, but it also enhances the whole economic and social fabric of that community.

The coastal communities on the Atlantic coast rely on these fishing fleets, and the native communities are no different than the non-native communities. So with four or five lobster fleets and a snow crab fleet, they need gas, they need workers, and they need people to make repairs. There is the whole issue of the sale and marketing of the products. Name it, it is there. We can see the economic development opportunities that flow from this strategy, which again I applaud.

To turn the page, and keeping pace with change in recent years, Fisheries and Oceans Canada has renewed the strategy. Part of this renewal has included the development of two programs introduced last year that continue to increase the opportunities for first nations communities involved in our fisheries industries.

First, the aboriginal aquatic resources and ocean management, AAROM, program supports aboriginal groups in areas where DFO manages the fisheries and establishes aquatic resource and ocean management bodies. It enables these bodies to obtain access to skilled personnel and related support that allows them to participate effectively in decision making and advisory processes.

The second initiative is the aboriginal inland habitat program. That program shares the same objectives as the AAROM program but focuses on fish habitat management in inland provinces. This program facilitates the engagement of inland aboriginal groups in activities of fisheries and oceans in the fish habitat management program, and of course we are talking about aquaculture and fish farm management.

It encourages new collaborations among aboriginal groups and helps us build established working relationships. It is not part of the policy discussions, but I would hope that what happened on the Atlantic coast, with the inclusion of the native bands and the established fishery, that it would serve as a template for other industries, perhaps forestry or similar court cases that come down giving native groups rights, albeit limited, to some of our timber resources. That is also something that I think the government and perhaps our aboriginal leaders should consider. I really think this is a program that has worked and should be emulated in other areas.

Very recently the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced new initiatives for aboriginal fisheries mentoring and training. The at sea mentoring initiative will help Mi'kmaq and Maliseet First Nations in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and in the Gaspé region of the Province of Quebec to further develop skills to fish safely and effectively in various fisheries.

Again, we can see some of the challenges and dilemma of this program. In certain instances people are now fishing who did not fish before. It is not something that one can just go and do. One has to be trained. There is experience involved. It takes time. This program that I reported recently talks about some of the initiatives that the minister is taking to enhance the level of training and skills that our aboriginal fishers will need to have when they utilize the licences that are presently owned by their aboriginal communities.

It will assist the first nations in diversifying the catch in the inshore fishery and improving overall fishing skills in the mid-shore fishery as well as learning vessel maintenance.

There are always going to be challenges and it is never going to be perfect. I see the two programs that I just talked about adding two new layers to the existing program which has been so successful.

At the same time, the minister announced a new fisheries operation management initiative that will support first nations in learning more advanced skills to manage the communal fisheries assets with the objective of maximizing benefits not only for the fishers but also for the coastal communities. I want to reiterate how important that is.

Both of these initiatives respond to the training, the mentoring and the management expertise requirements identified by the first nation communities. In addition to helping aboriginal groups develop skills and capacity, we have increased their access to the fishery and we have signed multi-year fisheries agreements with 32 first nations.

Clearly this government continues to do its utmost to ensure that aboriginal Canadians can participate fully in the fisheries, with conservation and sustainability being the top priorities.

Despite all of these positive initiatives, as everyone is aware, certainly people who follow fisheries issues, the management of fisheries is extremely complex. We see that in what is going on off the coast of Newfoundland as we speak. There is nothing simple about the management of fish. Issues around treaty and aboriginal rights add to this complexity, but I believe they are being handled in a good manner.

As I first said when I rose, we certainly very much appreciate the committee's concerns around clarity. We are taking actions to address the issues that it has raised. I should point out also that there has been considerable consultation with aboriginal fishing groups and other fishing groups and I understand that the bill has received broad support from all concerned.

It is clear that Bill C-33 fulfills commitments made to the standing joint committee and addresses the issues raised in its reports. The bill proposes greater clarity and certainty on existing legislative authorities, a key component in an orderly and properly managed fishery.

I urge all members of the House to join me in supporting Bill C-33, which I consider a very important piece of legislation.

Wayne Easter Malpeque, PE

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the remarks of the parliamentary secretary and certainly agree with the thrust of the bill. The parliamentary secretary talked a fair bit about the Marshall decision, the Sparrow court decision and others that have had quite an impact on the regular commercial fishery.

In one of the ports in my riding and in regard to the allocation under the Marshall decision, although it was the right thing to do, and the intent was right, under that intent and after a certain period of time the aboriginal community was supposed to be fishing on its own on the water and not leasing out its operations to allow somebody else to fish. That is not exactly what happened. The fact of the matter is that some leasing is still going on so the full intent has not been exercised.

As well, I have heard a rumour, and I wonder if the parliamentary secretary could tell me whether the rumour is right or wrong. The rumour was that there would be two more allocations of fishing licences made in an area that is already tight in terms of the fishery and conservation. In my view, we are not supposed to be issuing additional licences. I would expect that the aboriginal community would have to wait until such time as those licences would be available.

I will ask the parliamentary secretary this for greater clarity and certainty in terms of where we are at relative to the Marshall decision. The fisheries committee provided the Department of Fisheries and Oceans some time ago with quite a list of questions and has never received any answers relative to the Marshall decision.

Can the parliamentary secretary assure me that no licences will be granted unless they can be purchased in order to be turned over?

Shawn Murphy Hillsborough, PE

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank my learned colleague for this question. He certainly is very knowledgeable on this issue. He has lived it, not only in his district of Malpeque, Prince Edward Island, but also as a former chair of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Ocean, which has spent quite a bit of time studying this issue.

He raises some good points, but I think he does agree with me that from a global context, although everything is not perfect and this implementation has not been perfect, by and large the whole implementation of the Marshall initiative by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has worked reasonably well. It is not perfect.

The hon. member raised one point about the whole issue of aboriginal persons on the water. Again, that is one of the programs on which I just reported about seven minutes ago. The minister announced last year that the department is trying to upgrade the skills and training of the aboriginal fishers so that they will better trained in the whole process of fishing. My colleague knows that we cannot take what we call a landlubber and put him at sea or the next thing we know we are going to have problems. People may think that fishing is easy. It is not an easy occupation. It is a hard occupation and it is a dangerous occupation, and one has to be trained to do it.

What has happened on the east coast is that a lot of fishing families have been at it for eight generations. A lot of the Acadian families started in the 1600s, so for them it has been 10 and 12 generations. A lot of these men--although a lot of women go to sea now--were trained by their fathers. A lot of them started as young men and have learned their training at sea. Again, that is the program the minister announced and it has been a good program.

He identifies in his comments the whole issue of the acquisition of licences, and the learned member is correct that the department, to meet its requirement under the Marshall initiative, is supposed to get two additional licences on the north shore of Prince Edward Island. The department has tried its very best but one of the problems, because of the acquisition by DFO of a number of these licences over the last number of years, and perhaps because fishing has been relatively good--although there are parts of Prince Edward Island where the lobster fishery, especially on the strait side, has not been good, but in the district that I call LF24 it has been relatively good--is that it has driven up the price of these licences pretty high, as my learned friend knows very well, and that has caused problems in acquiring these last two licences.

My learned friend is right. It would be better to have them spread out across the north shore. Hopefully that will take place.

Larry Bagnell Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development

Mr. Speaker, I have two questions for my hon. colleague. The second one is basically about why there are only these small technical amendments in this act. There have been calls for amendments to the Fisheries Act for many years. We have a number of issues that have come from my riding, and the chambers of commerce nationally and the national Federation of Canadian Municipalities have been calling for certain reviews, so I question why there are only a few small technical amendments in this act.

My first question is related to whether the member can explain how this act, which came from parliamentarians, helps to fulfill the democratic deficit. As he knows, that is one of the most exciting things since the new administration came into place. The House has changed dramatically with free votes by the members, at least on this side, and there has been a whole change in tenor. If he remembers, when we first started this Parliament virtually all the debate from the opposition on all sides was related to how undemocratic this place was, and we do not hear a word of that anymore. It is a great empowerment of committees in Parliament and I find it exciting that we will be going into some free votes in a couple of minutes.

I wonder if the member could respond to those two questions: first, how this was actually an initiative of parliamentarians, responding to parliamentarians; and second, why there are not a lot of the other initiatives that people have been asking for in regard to the Fisheries Act.

Shawn Murphy Hillsborough, PE

Mr. Speaker, I will answer the second question first. Yes, this issue arose from a court case on the west coast of Canada. It was referred to the standing joint committee. The standing joint committee put a lot of good work into the whole issue and shared its concerns with the Minister and Department of Fisheries and Oceans. The minister and the department responded very quickly, which I thought was appropriate. Again, as I pointed out previously, the amendments to the Fisheries Act have broad support, both within the native fisheries organizations and within the non-native fisheries organizations. I guess in hindsight this is the way the system should work, and I am pleased to be part of it on this particular issue.

On the other issue, my learned friend brings up a very important point on the whole review and modernization of the Fisheries Act. I am not sure my learned friend is aware, but some of the provisions of the Fisheries Act that are there now were, I believe, enacted in 1867 and are there without amendment. It is a very ancient act. There are a lot of unusual provisions. It probably does need a review. I have concerns that should be addressed in the Fisheries Act, but likewise every fisheries organization from coast to coast to coast has concerns.