Bill C-45 (Historical)

Fisheries Act, 2007

An Act respecting the sustainable development of Canada's seacoast and inland fisheries

This enactment repeals and replaces the Fisheries Act. It seeks to provide for the sustainable development of Canadian fisheries and fish habitat in collaboration with fishers, the provinces, aboriginal groups and other Canadians.
It sets out management principles governing the exercise of responsibilities under the Act, and provides tools and authorities to improve the ability of the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to properly manage fisheries and fish habitat.
Part 1 establishes a regime for the proper management and control of fisheries. It allows the Minister to stabilize access and allocation in fisheries, issue fishing licences, conclude agreements with groups that participate in a fishery and issue fisheries management orders.
Part 2 provides for the conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat.
Part 3 provides for the control and management of aquatic invasive species.
Part 4 provides the necessary powers to administer and enforce the Act.
Part 5 establishes the Canada Fisheries Tribunal and sets out a system of licence sanctions for fisheries violations to be administered by that Tribunal, which will also consider appeals of licence decisions.
Part 6 provides for regulations and other related matters required for the administration of the Act.
Part 7 sets out transitional provisions, consequential amendments and coordinating amendments and repeals certain other Acts.

Fisheries Act, 2007

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

--and table that in the House. There seems to be public interest in doing this.

The government stands behind its policy of consultation. The government members were commenting as I was making my speech about their extensive consultation and how wonderful it was. If those members are proud of that initiative and that effort, tabling the list of those consulted would be most helpful and germane to the debate.

We are months into this act and we still do not have such a list. If it exists, the government should present it, and with courage, not fear.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, one of the things the proposed act does is download conservation and management responsibilities to local governments and organizations that are lacking the means to carry them out.

In my riding, the Puntledge River Restoration Society is fighting a seal problem in the Courtenay River and is not getting any help from the DFO. The society is already frustrated. If it is left to carry out all this work on its own, what will happen to groups like this in the future if the proposed act were to pass?

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

There are 20 seconds left to respond.

[Nathan Cullen, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

It is an amazing fact, Mr. Speaker, but when I visit the volunteer based fisheries hatcheries and enhancement programs in my region, over and over again I learn that their funding has been cut. The oceans planning funding has been cut in half when it needed to be doubled. When we start to look at the resources these communities depend upon, we find them wanting. The resources are not to be found.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to be in the House today to speak to this particular hoist motion.

For people in the House who might not know about Labrador, it has an area of 112,000 square kilometres, much of it coastline. I grew up in a community of about 45 to 50 people that was and is a fishing community, like so many others dotted along the coast of Labrador.

Our family has fished and continues to fish both commercially and recreationally for food and sustenance, and for hundreds of years now, back to my Inuit ancestors. We know about the sea and how important it is, not only from a personal perspective, but from a cultural perspective as well. We know how important the sea is. We know how important the fishery is to our livelihoods.

Over many hundreds of years, the Métis of Labrador, of which I am one, the Inuit of Labrador and the Innu of Labrador have taken care of the fisheries resources. We have been good stewards of the fisheries resource in our area because we knew it was for our livelihood. We knew it put food on our table. We knew it was there to sustain us day in and day out. That comes from our very strong value system in Labrador and our aboriginal people. That same value system, I would say, is shared by non-aboriginal people in Labrador as well.

We have a history around the fishery. We have a history around the sea. We know what it means to us in an integral way, not just in a political debate, not just to make hay over it, not just to score political points. We know how integral the fishery is to our communities.

When we see the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans introducing such a substantive bill, an omnibus bill, which sort of deals with everything in the Fisheries Act at the one time after 138 years, we have to wonder why he is in such a rush to get it through. Some of us would say that he is just trying to make history, that he wants to be the minister who changed an act that is 138 years old. That is what it seems like to us. It seems like the minister just wants to get himself down in the history books without any care for the people who are going to be impacted, without any care for the people and the communities that are going to have to deal with the changes, and without any care, really, for the fisheries resource itself.

That is one reason that I can see for this sort of swift action on the part of the minister. He is trying to bring the bill into the House and jam it down the throats of politicians and subsequently try to jam it down the throats of fishers and all those stakeholders who depend on the fisheries resource.

The minister and the Conservative Party talk about transparency, accountability and openness. I can safely say that I have been on the wharves and I have talked to people in the fishing industry. I have talked to the fish plant owners and the fish plant workers, all of whom have a say in one way, shape or form. I also have talked to conservation groups, aboriginal groups, commercial fishers and recreational fishers.

I have talked to a whole range of people who are involved in the fishing industry and they knew basically nothing about what was coming down the pipe. They knew there were some policy reviews years ago. They knew that the minister was going around having chats with this group and that group. But they did not know that this bill was coming down with the substantive changes that are in it.

That government over there talks one thing and walks something else. The government does not want to listen. That is evident not only around this particular Fisheries Act, the way it has implemented it, and the substantive changes it has brought before the House, but with other issues as well.

We only got a look a couple of weeks ago at the government's changes to student programs and all the new criteria that nobody knew anything about. The government had to change its mind on that and start approving people and organizations. The Conservatives have made mistakes time and time again. This is certainly one of the mistakes that they have made when it comes to accountability and openness. There has been no openness when it comes to Bill C-45.

The Conservatives talk about consultation. It is hard to find a group out there that will admit that they have been consulted on Bill C-45. My colleagues in the other party have said that they wanted a list. There has been a so-called stakeholders list provided by the government regarding consultations.

If we look through the list, all it says is that a letter has been sent out, a phone call has been made, a letter has been sent, and the government calls that consultation. Sending out a letter and notifying people that the government is bringing in a bill with all of these changes is the government's idea of consultation. The people do not even know what the changes are and how the changes will affect them.

It is unconscionable that the government would talk about consultation, provide some kind of list and all it does is make a phone call, leave a message and send out a letter. There is not even any indication that the people have received the letters, the messages and are responding in any type of substantive way.

From a Labrador perspective, and I would think that this is the same throughout the province of Newfoundland and Labrador and Atlantic Canada that there is hardly a group, a fishing enterprise, a processing company, a union representative, an aboriginal group, a coastal community or any other, that was consulted. They may have been talked to but that is not consultation.

Consultation comes with obligations, time and information. There is a legal duty to consult aboriginal groups, as the minister rightfully knows. From the groups in Labrador, I have heard nothing that would indicate that there has been any effective consultation with the three aboriginal groups, the Labrador Métis Nation, the Labrador Inuit Association which is the Nunatsiavut government, or the Innu Nation, on the proposed changes to the Fisheries Act.

It would seem that this whole issue around consultation that the government purports is a sham. It has not consulted and in fact one of the government members just in the last few minutes admitted as much. He said that we cannot talk to people before the tabling of a bill. Even Conservative members of the House are saying that there has been no consultation on this particular bill. That is what was admitted to by the member from the west coast.

In terms of the bill itself, it talks about downloading responsibility. The act seems to not firm up or strengthen environmental regulations but basically it would weaken them.

Of course we all believe in the principle and concept of conservation. We have to conserve our stocks in whatever form, whether they are in the ocean ecosystem or in inland waters to make sure they are healthy and there for all time to come.

We have seen basically an example within Bill C-45 of the government's disregard for the voice and opinion of those in the fishing sector. Being from the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, we saw the row in the province when it came to the sale of FPI. No agreement could be reached. Communities on the island portion of the province were waiting, left out in the cold because the government could not respond regarding the sale of FPI and how the quotas were going to be handled.

The bill talks about cooperating with the province and of downloading some responsibility to the province and that type of thing, but the latest examples from the government show that it cannot even get along when people's livelihoods are at stake in communities like Burgeo, Marystown and the Burin Peninsula. The government talks one thing and does another.

The government says that we could have effective consultation once the bill goes through second reading and ends up in committee, but knows itself that we cannot make substantive changes to the bill once it is in committee. We can basically only talk about what the government has already decided to do and the changes that it has already put into being in this particular bill. The government knows that.

Again, it seems to me that the Conservatives want to use procedure now to not hear the voices of those in the fishing industry and to not hear the voices of those in our communities.

The Conservatives want to basically use a strong-arm tactic to basically say to the people in our communities to take it or leave it, that what the government decides is good for them and that they must accept it. The government is saying the communities have to swallow it hook, line and sinker. I am speaking now for the people of Labrador.

We also have many quotes from the minister. There is one where the minister says “we don't want endless consultation”. Nobody is asking for endless consultation. We only want some type of consultation with people in our industry.

The minister says “people want concrete action and they want it now”. He talks about that in relation to changes to the Fisheries Act and Bill C-45.

I can say to the minister that when people on the coast of Labrador and on the coast of Newfoundland who were stuck in ice during the seal fishery this past spring, who had their boats damaged, who could not get out and get a seal pelt to earn some money to put food on their tables, when all of that was happening and when there is still an ice crisis in the sense that even a fishery that was supposed to open cannot open because of the ice conditions, we called for action. We called for action in this House. We called for action in the committee. There have been calls for action on the open line shows by the union, by the fishers and by the industry itself.

What has the minister done? Nothing. He calls for action. He says, “We want action on Bill C-45”. I would say that fishers back home want action when it comes to some kind of help around ice compensation. People have been going without a cheque now for six and seven weeks. There is no money to pay the bills. There is no money to make the payments that need to be made. We called for action on something that is concrete and on something that means something to the people in our communities, and he has not moved an inch from what we can see.

The minister says he is going to do it. He says he is going to study it. He says he is going to gather information on it. That is what the minister says he is going to do and then he may take some action.

He is better off using that type of rhetoric when it comes to Bill C-45. Go out and gather some information. He should listen to the people, consult with them, understand the implications that this bill is going to have, first of all, for our ecosystem, our fish resources, and then our fishers and those that depend on the resource.

While I am at it I should say to the parliamentary secretary that we would like to see some action on ice compensation. This is what the fishers have asked for and the minister has not done it.

The minister is saying that he wants to see some concrete action on Bill C-45, yet he has gone about it all the wrong way. We cannot get action when we need it from this particular minister.

It was the same thing only a few months ago when my Liberal colleague from P.E.I. had to force the minister to put more money into small craft harbours. The minister was not taking any action on small craft harbours.

The Conservatives felt so ashamed of themselves, so downtrodden, they felt that they needed to do something to make themselves look good so they put some more money in. It was only after my Liberal colleague from P.E.I. shamed them into putting more money into small craft harbours.

The Conservatives seem to want action on Bill C-45 above everything else. When we ask them to take action on something that is concrete and meaningful on specific issues, they only pause and sit there. They pause and sit there while people go hungry, while people are looking for some assistance from this particular minister and this particular government.

It would point to a party and a government that does not understand Atlantic Canada, does not understand the fisheries, and is not willing to respond in an adequate way when it is asked to respond.

It is only appropriate that I and my party support this hoist motion. It is only appropriate that we hear the voices of the fishers and those in our communities who are going to be affected by the changes in Bill C-45, allow them to have a say, to have some input, and to understand the consequences of this particular piece of legislation. Is that too much to ask?

We ask the government, what is the huge urgency in this? What is the huge urgency? The bill has been with us for 138 years. If we are going to make changes, why do we not do it right?

There is urgency when it comes to ice compensation. There is urgency when it comes to small craft harbours. There is urgency when it comes to some kind of regulatory reform and vessel size, which I understand the minister has put some effort into. There is urgency to protect the fish and the ecosystem, but I do not believe there is any urgency to ram through Bill C-45 without due process, without proper process. We certainly do not want the bill to be rammed through with the flaws that we have observed in it.

I call upon the Conservative Party to do the right thing for a change. I say to the Conservatives that for once in the last 15 months of government they should listen to what the people have to say. Listen to what the people have to say because it concerns and affects them.

It is incumbent upon the minister to do so. The minister is from a fishing province, but sometimes he is like a fish out of water when it comes to his own portfolio. He is in some sort of airy, up there type of strata and does not have his feet planted on the wharf. He is not listening to what people are telling him.

I say to the Conservative Party that it should support the hoist motion. It should take the summer, early fall, have effective consultations and come back with a bill that makes sense, that all parties, the fishing industry and communities can support. The hoist motion just makes common sense. It is what the people want and it is time for the Conservative government to listen.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I believe my colleague's comments are genuine. I need to keep asking this question because I have not yet received a coherent answer from the Liberals or the NDP.

I want to be very clear on what he thinks is the way forward. Some have given the impression that we pass this hoist amendment, do some consultation, take the bill from whoever has it at the moment, make some changes, and when they are not looking maybe put it back in a changed form. That is not the way it works.

Let me quote from the parliamentary Compendium, which says:

The adoption of a hoist amendment is tantamount to defeating the bill by postponing its consideration. Consequently, the bill disappears from the Order Paper and cannot be introduced again, even after the postponement period has elapsed.

First, I would like him to comment further on the specific steps forward. What does he think is the best way forward? If we pass the hoist amendment, what are the next steps after that?

Second, for over 100 years the normal process was that we did our best with a bill. We brought it before Parliament, debated it at second reading, and sent it to committee where it is debated and has some changes made.

The principle of the bill states:

The purpose of this Act is to provide for the sustainable development of Canada’s seacoast and inland fisheries, through the conservation and protection of fish and fish habitat and the proper management and control of fisheries.

I would like to know if he disagrees with that principle and why we cannot build on that in committee.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I do not think anyone disagrees with the principle or the intent behind Bill C-45. No one has spoken against changes to the Fisheries Act. No one has said that we do not need a new act or that we cannot make improvements on something that is 138 years old.

However, the fundamental principle of consultation, of going on the wharves, of accompanying people on the boats, of listening to people in the fish plants, listening to processors, union representatives and aboriginal groups, that principle of listening and then developing a bill that accommodates their needs and aspirations, bearing in mind the principle that the parliamentary secretary just read out, in my opinion there is no disagreement with the principle as he has read it out.

What I have a problem with is the fundamental process in the way that the government has gone about it.

If we have the hoist motion, and I am no expert on parliamentary procedure, but if it effectively kills the bill and we have a postponement period, then we take that postponement period to develop, implement and properly resource an effective consultation process.

It would seem to me that would be tantamount to abiding by the law that exists, particularly when it comes to the Haida decision and aboriginal groups. It would be respectful of all those who have a concern in the industry. Perhaps if we can all agree and we listen to people in the communities, we would not need to go through as long a committee process at the end of it.

We may in fact be shortening the process to some extent if we allow the hoist motion to go forward, put into effect a proper consultation process and then bring back a bill that is more reflective of the needs and aspirations of particularly those in the fishing industry and in the fishery resource itself. We could probably find more agreement among parliamentarians, get it though committee and then we would have something that is better for all of us, not only for today but for many generations to come.

[Peter Stoffer, NDP, Sackville—Eastern Shore, NS]

Mr. Speaker, I answered the question for the parliamentary secretary before but I will give the answer to the hon. member for Labrador who spoke so eloquently on his heritage and his people's heritage in the beautiful part of Labrador and attached to Newfoundland regarding the aspect of the fisheries and what it has meant to the survival of his people for over thousands of years.

When we asked about consultation on the bill, we know there was none, as we have proven already in the House. We have asked the parliamentary secretary to table the documents in the House but so far the government has refused to do it.

However, we do have indications here. I will take the province of British Columbia. There is a gentleman by the name Byng Giraud who is the senior director of the Mining Association of British Columbia. The new bill has 253 different clauses with 107 pages, a lot of it written in legalese. It takes someone of very high academic standing quite a long time to go through the bill and to understand it.

This was tabled on December 13, 2006 in the afternoon here in Ottawa. On December 14 the B.C. Mining Association issued a press release saying that it was pleased with the new act.

How can these six reputable organizations, the B.C. Business Council, the Chamber of Commerce, the forest industry, the Mining Association, the Association for Mineral Exploration and the B.C. Agricultural Council, say that the bill is great after only 12 hours from the introduction of the bill? How did they have that analysis?

We find out that in August 2006 they made recommendations to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans regarding the environmental aspects of the bill. Now we find that of the 16 recommendations they made, close to 14 of them are in the bill.

It also turns out that Byng Giraud just happens to be on the National Council of the Conservative Party for British Columbia. The government would not talk to fishermen in his riding. It would not talk to the fishermen in British Columbia or Nova Scotia. It would not talk to the families, the people who are involved in the fishing industry.

I keep reminding the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans that he is the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, not the minister of mining.

My hon. colleague is absolutely correct when his colleague from Gander brought in the hoist amendment. We challenged Bill C-30. We took it to a committee and rewrote it and it is something we are proud of. The government is not. We ask the same for the fisheries bill. We ask that it be brought before the committee before second reading where fishermen and their families will be able to debate it. Let us write a new act that we can all be proud of and let us all move forward.

[Todd Russell, Liberal, Labrador, NL]

Mr. Speaker, that is shocking information. I did not know that Mr. Giraud, one of the few who responded in a positive way, was on the Conservative executive out in B.C.

It would seem that the Conservative definition of consultation is to go to fellow Conservatives, listen to what they want, stick it in a bill and draft a press release for when it is tabled. Fishermen in my community would be appalled to know that is how the government operates. I will be sure to make them aware, having learned this particular fact, of how they get treated.

The Conservatives do not listen to the fishermen or the plant workers. All they want to do is ram something down their throats at the behest of some interest group or some individual within the Conservative Party, and that is not appropriate. It is disrespectful to the people who really depend on the fishing industry, who have depended on it for generations and who have taken it upon themselves in many regards to protect the resource and to fight for the resource, sometimes without regulation and sometimes without an act being there at all.

I remember protest after protest in which I was involved in trying to protect the fisheries resources. I was arrested on a number of those occasions but I was never convicted, which may be why the Conservatives want to change the act.

I must say that it is appalling that the only people the Conservatives have so-called consulted with are people from the mining industry or, as some people would call them, the contaminating industries, although some people in the mining industry are good and there is no doubt about that, and that they only consult and ask Conservatives.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by thanking the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore for his hard work, his relentless determination in exposing the negative aspects of this act and his work on the fisheries committee. He is definitely someone to whom fishermen across the country look up to, especially from my riding of Vancouver Island North.

[Chuck Strahl, Conservative, Chilliwack—Fraser Canyon, BC]

Around the world they look up to him.

[Catherine Bell, NDP, Vancouver Island North, BC]

Yes, probably around the world.

I rise today to speak against the government's proposed fisheries act, Bill C-45.

As members know, my riding of Vancouver Island North has a long history in the fishing industry and, in particular, in the salmon fishery. It has been an integral part of the culture of my riding for thousands of years and a way of life for many first nations for countless generations and, hopefully, will continue into the future, although we are not quite sure.

Bill C-45 would have a negative impact on those fisheries in my riding.

Since I was elected about a year and a half ago, I have talked to fishermen across the riding, from north to south. They have told me that changes are needed in the way that Canada, in particular on the west coast, manages its fishery. Issues of co-management, habitat and species protection and enforcement are front and centre in people's minds and yet most of these people felt that there were problems within DFO itself and did not require a whole new act.

After seeing the act, I can now say that it would do very little to solve all these problems. It is just, plain and simple, bad legislation, just like the softwood lumber deal and the inadequate climate change program. The Conservative government has sold out ordinary Canadians and given to large multinational corporations.

What has angered many people in my communities has been the total lack of consultation with local stakeholders. Time and time again we hear that this House, this government wants to listen to ordinary Canadians but then it goes about and does the exact opposite.

With its climate change plan, it talked to the oil and gas industry rather than consulting ordinary Canadians.

With electoral reform, a subject that is very close to my heart, we saw that the government relied on focus groups in very small pockets. It held one meeting in each province and called that consultation. It would rather do that than hold public meetings and let people know exactly what we are talking about.

It is no different with Bill C-45. There was no consultation. The government may have had meetings around the country on different topics around fisheries. I know in my riding that many meetings were held but there was never any talk or discussion about changing an act and no one was requested for input on a fisheries act. To me, that is not consultation. That is just a meeting to talk about what is going on in the fishery. We have those all the time.

One would think that with such a proposed monumental change in the way Canada manages its fisheries, the government would have talked to fishery workers and gathered their experience and their views in creating this new act. It said it would. In a media release back in December 2006, DFO stated that the new act came from extensive cross-country consultations and discussions but it did not.

There were no direct discussions, consultations or meetings about new ideas and changes within this act. As I said earlier, if one attended a meeting in the last couple of years that was called consultation.

However, ordinary people in the industry know that they were left out. Recreational and sport fishers, local commercial fleets, aboriginal people, environmentalists and conservation groups were not asked about the creation of Bill C-45. In fact, practically every environmental organization on the coast have denounced this bill saying that they were not asked about it and that they saw many flaws within it.

However, the government did listen to one group. It listened to its friends in large corporate fleets. As my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore pointed out, the government listened to the mining industry. We heard that it was quick off the mark in saying what a wonderful bill this is. After I think only 12 hours it managed to read this lengthy document and come up with a full report.

I wonder if it had insider information on what was in the bill. Maybe it even had a hand in writing it, I do not know. However, the bill definitely reflects the concerns of those organizations. It is almost a wish list for the corporate interests over the public.

I have talked to many ordinary fishermen in my riding. I have gone to the docks, processing plants and fish farms. There are not very many processing plants left on the coast and hatcheries are in a sad state of repair. They have been neglected for so long. I have met with many men and women who work in these places and have listened to their concerns. They are almost unanimous in their opposition to the bill.

The current Fisheries Act has held up well for the past 139 years, adapting and changing with the times, as one would expect of something that is a very large piece of legislation. Most would agree that it is not perfect legislation. It has many strengths and also some weaknesses in the eyes of the front line workers, but it is far better than what is proposed here today.

Again, if the government would have listened to average fisheries workers, to the men and women on the coast in my riding and on the eastern coast, it would know that the problem is not all with the act, there are also many problems with the DFO. Budget cuts and a centralized bureaucracy are what people tell me are the biggest problems facing fisheries management today. For example, while the DFO might say it would like to protect species and habitat, the fact is that it does not have the resources that it needs to do the job. At the current level on the west coast, it is ridiculous to think that these people can effectively protect the entire area.

The other problem is that the DFO is too centralized in Ottawa to understand local concerns and listen to the front line workers. Fishers in my riding feel as though their insights and their concerns are not listened to, especially when it comes to how to manage the fish stocks. A prime example is the collapse of the east coast cod fishery in the late eighties. Local scientists and fishery workers were raising alarm bells for years about the state of the cod fishery, but Ottawa did not listen until it was way too late. Those same alarm bells are ringing in my riding right now and the DFO still seems to be deaf to them.

We all know that buying a new house will not fix a bad marriage, but that is what the government is trying to accomplish. Rather than sitting down and really working on the issue of fisheries management with all the stakeholders, the Conservatives have gone out and bought a new Fisheries Act. However I, as well as those fisheries workers in my riding, know that the core problems still remain.

The lack of consultations were not the only problem with the new act. If passed, the act would go a long way to remove the public nature of the Canadian fishery and place it in the hands of corporate fishing interests. Much of what is in the act, coupled with its weak and ambiguous language, allows for less public control over the fishery and gives more control to the DFO and big business.

Bill C-45 does not acknowledge the fishery as a common property resource. Nor does it recognize the public's right to fish as a key value. In a meeting with sport fishermen in my riding, and this was before the bill was proposed in the House, they said that if the government were ever to change the act, they wanted to ensure that it would entrench the principle of personal use access of ordinary Canadians to a share of the common property fisheries resource. For them, that was fundamental.

They talked very strongly about how we need to maintain the common property resource of the fishery. If these people were asked, they would have presented this to the government, but unfortunately, they were never asked. It is a very important principle. It is the key value of the fishery in Canada, especially on the west coast.

The Supreme Court of Canada has stated that fishing is a right, not a privilege, and that the fishery is a common property resource. The government claims that Bill C-45 confirms this ruling saying, “Nothing in C-45 contradicts this. In fact, C-45 is based on this very premise”. However, the bill in itself says, “Parliament is committed to maintaining the public character of the management of fisheries and fish habitat”. This is an entirely different concept. The public character can mean many different things, whereas the public's right to fish is pretty definitive in its meaning.

We can see the increasing corporate control over the fishery spelled out in the changes to the licensing programs. The government plans not only to change the length of the licence, but also who can give them out and whether fishermen can pass it along to their children or sell it to pay for their retirement.

Most of the fisheries workers who I have talked to believe that 15 year terms of licences are far too long. Longer allocation periods lead to greater corporate control. Large fishing enterprises can have access to the resource for longer periods of time, essentially shutting out other interested individuals, enterprise or community for a whole 15 years. I think it is more than a generation. This extension also does not take into affect the ecological reality of fish stocks and the natural fluctuations in the stock. Fifteen year licences do not make sense for the fish, but it does make sense for business.

While increasing the length of the licences, Bill C-45 also threatens to eliminate the intergenerational transfer of licences and the financial and social security of many independent fishers, their families and their communities. Licences are financial security for many fishermen. It gives them something to hand off to their children or to sell off to provide them with money for their retirement. We all know that most fishermen do not have a pension plan. Not only does this mean that the government can refuse a sale or transfer of a licence, but it can then redistribute it to whomever it wants. Members should not think this will not happen.

One of the other clauses in Bill C-45 allows the minister to designate DFO officials to grant or refuse licences. This gives more control over the handing out and denial of licences to DFO bureaucrats and eliminates the opportunity for politicians to question licence decisions. Others worry that this downloading of power will create a system ripe for abuse, which will mean a relationship with the DFO and connections to the minister will become the preferred means to get a fish allocation instead of simply being a Canadian citizen.

Many of the changes seem to actively work against local and small fishermen in favour of large corporate fleets. Yet the small and local fisheries are the backbone of many communities across Canada. That is especially true in my riding where many small operators are trying to make a living and it is becoming increasingly difficult. By stacking the deck against them, we are not only putting the future of the fishery at risk, but the livelihood of countless small communities dotted along the coast, rivers and inlets.

The bill fails to strengthen conservation and protection measures for fish and fish habitat. What we have here is a bill that is more focused on economics than on ecosystems. There are few guidelines in the legislation. What is there is weak and ambiguous, allowing for loopholes and grey areas. While there are parameters for co-management of the stocks, they are quite flawed and actually have the potential for more creeping corporatization of the resource.

Bill C-45 grants too much discretion to the minister by using the word “may” over “must”. I know about weasel words and that is a weasel word if I ever heard one. The use of this language opens up loopholes that would allow for multiple contradictions and vagaries.

I just spoke about habitat protection and measures for protecting fish habitat. In my riding we have a current issue with the Courtenay River. The Puntledge River Restoration Society is a small group that has been looking after and trying to help with habitat protection and management for more than 10 years. It has been fighting a seal problem in the river. The seal population has been allowed to grow and they are eating the salmon on the way out of the river in the spring and on the way back in the fall.

The DFO was working with the Restoration Society. It said it would help with the seal population, that it would complex the river and take some measures to reduce the population. Ten years ago it did a cull of the seals, which was a sad thing, but in order to save the salmon that was something that happened at the time, and it caused quite a controversy in the community. However, the DFO never did follow through on what it said it would do.

Now 10 years later the seal population is back again. It is causing another problem. The minister says that this small group of volunteers should be looking after things. By this act, it would be these small organizations that would be relied upon to look after fish habitat. All these volunteers have said that they give up. They are tired of raising salmon for the seals when they want to be raising them for fishermen to go out and catch.

While we do not have a problem feeding seals, it is sad to see all one's work go down into their bellies. The seals have no natural predators in this area. Again, the volunteers of these organizations across my riding, and this is just one example, are saying that they are not getting any help from the DFO, that there is a big problem there. If they are going to be left to be the managers of fish habitat without any assistance, they are not going to do it, plain and simple.

With the bill, if they are relying upon these organizations, they are not going to be there. That is a big problem and I cannot see who would take this on. I would hate to see the bill passed in that regard.

Suffice it to say, the bill would favour corporations over the small fishermen, corporations that only look out for their bottom line. We should not expect anything else from them. That is what they are good at, that is what they do and that is okay. However, we cannot privatize fish and fish habitat management to people who only care about making money.

Fish and their habitat are part of an ecosystem that supports all kinds of life, commercially viable or not, and the bill is not one to increase environmental and fish protection. It is designed to download and outsource it. It has no standards or criteria. It is filled with loopholes and contradictions and ways not to protect fish, the ocean and the environment.

All in all, if the bill were to pass, it will be a disaster for the fishery industry.

I end by reinforcing some of the comments that were made by the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, in saying that the bill should not be passed. It is something on which we have heard from many members of society, and they are all opposed to it.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Malpeque, Canadian Wheat Board; the hon. member for Kitchener—Waterloo, Citizenship and Immigration.

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, let me say at the outset that I think I disagreed with just about everything the member said.

[An hon. member]

How can that be?