Madam Speaker, I rise today to congratulate my friend, the hon. member for Cardigan, in his efforts to talk about what is happening in Canada's lobster fishery because I believe it is indicative of what is happening in fisheries right across the country, from coast to coast to coast.
As the country, in a sense, is going through this deindustrialization process, we are processing less, making less, and we are doing less as Canadians. We are relying more and more on energy prices and a service economy which is no foundation for an economy. Those jobs do not pay the same.
I will take us from lobsters on the east coast to the commercial fishery on the west coast which describes the same phenomenon time and again. At its base, the government lacks the discipline or the will to put in place a plan and strategy that will allow not just for the survival of a commercial fishing industry but it to achieve something more than it was.
We have seen certainly on the west coast as much as on the east coast that the ability of people to go out and fish and put food on the table and earn enough to support their families is quickly becoming a thing of the past.
I will give an example, Madam Speaker. You may be familiar with Knight Inlet on B.C.'s west coast which has lost five very viable runs and that the southern coastal commercial fishing industry is virtually gone. There are so few boats in the water that to call it an industry at all is paling.
I can recall Conservatives, when they were in their previous incarnation in opposition, railing on this very fact. They would rail on the very thing that we are talking about today, which is the viability of these industries to survive. The government seems to have some sort of repulsion toward the idea of planning, of putting in place something that says this is where we are today, here are the measurable goals we wish to be at in the future, and to give those fishing communities that rely on this resource some sense of hope.
Whether we are on the east coast in the Atlantic provinces or we are on the west coast, when we go to these communities and sit in the coffee shops and at the kitchen tables and talk to those who are involved in the industry and ask them how they are feeling about their future, more often than not they will point to their kids and say there is so little chance of them being in the industry. There is so little chance of passing on licences or boats to them because the prospects for the future are so grim, so desperate, that it is not in good conscience for them to suggest that their children follow in their way of life.
We have to take a moment and pause here as parliamentarians, speaking in this hallowed place, and think of the generations who have come before us who have helped built this country. One of the primary things this country has done, it has gone out on the water and fished.
One essential thing that allowed the first settlers, those who came across from Europe, and that allowed the first nations communities, who have been here since time immemorial, to survive year in and year out was the ability to go out and harvest the wealth of the seas.
Now we are facing a moment as a result of a number of factors, some of which are not in the government's control but a number of which are, that through negligence over the years we have seen the continual erosion of the base and the foundation.
There are a couple of points I would like to make with respect to this motion as well as with the viability. When we look at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, I can recall talking to the minister when she was first appointed to the position. She talked to me about how she was going to whip those guys into shape. She was going to tell the department which direction it was going to go in and how fast to move.
I warned her. I said that she was not the first and only fisheries minister to come in with that kind of attitude and the department just rubs its hands and says, “Boy, we'll train this one too, like we trained the last one and the one before that”. She would follow into the top down pattern that has become the DFO, the black box of Ottawa, the one that describes these intentions and plans with so little communication with the people who are actually in the industry, with so little understanding of what it is for those communities that rely on this industry.
It has become so top heavy. It is this top heavy organization based on such a small foundation on the water, the people who have the experience and live in the fishing communities. This top heavy organization with 1,500 to 1,800 DFO people work here in Ottawa. We continually lose DFO officers out on the west coast and east coast. There is not that much of a commercial fishing industry here in Ottawa last time I checked. In fact, non-existent.
DFO has even lost the ability to monitor the stocks. If these things cannot be monitored, when it comes to lobster, halibut or salmon, they cannot be measured or managed. If the stocks cannot be managed, no wonder the government is constantly faced with a lobster crisis, a salmon crisis, and on down the list we go.
It seems to me that the government can make jokes about the communities that are suffering under these crises. It can suggest that these people are not actually suffering and pretend and hope it goes away, but simply ignoring the consequences of the government's inaction and failed policies means misery in the lives of people who rely on this.
It is not a laughing matter. I would ask my Conservative colleagues to not treat this as some sort of glib thing that they can wash off on a Friday afternoon. I encourage them to grab another cup of coffee if they are having trouble staying awake. I will ask the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development to peek over her shoulder at the conduct of her colleagues when discussing such an important issue. Laughing, yawning and carrying on are not becoming of members of Parliament when discussing such an important issue.
When we look at the 750 boats we have lost on the north coast of British Columbia alone, I would ask the members to go into the communities that I represent, talk to those families and say that there is no crisis in the fishing industry. We see the fish that do come to ground. They are processed overseas in China, Korea and other places, and then brought back and sold to Canadians. The government thinks that is a fine policy. We see processing plants standing idle and Canadians not working.
I see another member coming the west coast here who knows the situation in our commercial fishing industry. It is a pale version of itself from years past. It is a shadow of its former self. A fishing industry that built his community and communities that I represent alike is no longer what it was. We ask the government, how is it going to go from what it is right now to something more viable and stronger, with more value added and more enhancement? Be it lobster or salmon, it does not matter. We are asking for a plan. There is no plan coming from the government.
When the government does announce some very basic ideas like Pacific north coast planning and implementation, the government announces the plan but does not announce any funding to go along with it. It announces the notion of being able to go out and know what is actually out there as a resource, but it does not put any money behind it.
How can we possibly go out and monitor these things and understand the state and survivability of the stocks if we do not put any money behind it? It is not true. We cannot. There is simply no way to go about this.
At the first nations level, we have seen the attempt of government to have some sort of dialogue with first nations when it comes to these stocks. It has also failed.
We know that there is a way forward. We know that the communities have the solutions and answers to create a viable industry. This motion simply calls on the government to pay greater attention and to say that we are not calling this a sunset industry any more. We know we can do this. We can fish, harvest, gather, and process these resources here in Canada, create the kinds of jobs that we need to see and give those families and communities a sense of hope.
This is a serious matter for us all. This is a matter we should take with the utmost seriousness. The failure to do so will be a failure to recognize our history and a failure in our approach to the future.