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

[Randy Kamp, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge—Mission, BC]

That is almost the first time today.

I disagreed particularly with respect to the notion of consultations. I know those members will never be satisfied on this. There is a long list of people and the consultations that have taken place. We have had this conversation with the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore. If we did not say the right sentence or use the right verb in the sentence and in the right tense, then that was not considered consultation by him.

What we heard in these consultations was that fishermen and other stakeholders wanted a fishery that was sustainable, stable and predictable, in which they had some shared decision making, and a sanctions regime that was actually effective in addressing the problems of those who would not keep the rules. In fact, that is what we tried to do with Bill C-45. I think we accomplished that.

I am a bit confused, though, by the member's comments. I do not know if she is saying there is too much or too little ministerial discretion in this bill. The current act gives absolute discretion. In fact, those words are used in the act. I do not know if she wants to keep that or if she likes the way we have it in the bill.

The member for Vancouver Island North uses the typical NDP buzzword of “corporatization”. In fact, if anything, the licensing principles are to address that. The minister, with cabinet, and then by going through a regulatory process, devises licensing principles and they are put into effect by licensing officers. If a person does not meet the criteria, if a person perhaps violates the owner-operator policy or whatever it might be, then the person does not get a licence. I do not see any other way to address this issue of creeping corporatization, as those members like to call it, unless there is something similar to what is in this proposed fisheries act.

Finally, she said the notion of a public right to fish is a definitive concept. If it is so definitive, I would like her to define it for me.

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

Mr. Speaker, while I thank the hon. member for his lengthy questions, I am not surprised to hear that he does not agree with me as I of course am opposing something that his government has put forward.

I do not think I need to explain a Supreme Court ruling to the member. I think he can read it for himself and see how definitive it is.

With regard to consultation, as I said earlier in my remarks, and as I have heard from other members in this House and from the member who asked the question, the government had consultations for six or seven years. I am not sure how many years it was, but it is interesting how no one knew that it was going on in those six or seven years. It behooves me to think about all these organizations, the fisheries groups, the environmental organizations, the sport fishers, the lodge owners and the commercial fishermen, and how they did not know about these consultations and were never consulted even if the consultations were going on for so long. Perhaps the member could provide us with a list of those he consulted with so we can see that.

As for the fisheries being a right or a privilege, I want to read something for members. It says:

The new Act considers fishing a “privilege” to be bestowed by the Minister rather than a right. It gives the Minister and his bureaucrats power and authority never contemplated by the current Fisheries Act. It unnecessarily strengthens the hand of the Minister and his bureaucrats and weakens that of fishermen who depend on the resource for their livelihood. It would extinguish the public right to fish which has existed in British constitutional law for over 800 years. It will be a sad day for fishermen if this Act ever receives royal assent.

That was said by the member for Delta—Richmond East, so obviously the member not only disagrees with me but with his colleague from Delta--Richmond East.

[Dawn Black, NDP, New Westminster—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I congratulate my colleague, the member for Vancouver Island North, on her comments today. They shed a lot of light on the reasons why we will not be supporting this government bill. I also want to refer to the comments by my colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley, who articulated, also very well, all of the reasons that this bill is unworthy of support in the House.

In fact, they both talked about the lack of consultation with the groups that fish, the fishing community, both sports and commercial fishermen, and first nations. I will not belabour that point because it has been adequately addressed.

However, I would like to ask the member for Vancouver Island North about the lack of habitat protection and species management in the bill. They are missing.

I live on the banks of the Fraser River. Only a very few years ago I could look out my front window and watch the salmon jumping in the river. That was less than 10 years ago. I could watch fishing boats come down the river. I could watch the oolachan fishery and the big celebration that was held every year in New Westminster for the oolichan fishery. There was a big market and people came from all over the Lower Mainland to buy oolichan.

That no longer exists. There is no oolichan in that river. There are very few salmon swimming in that river now. It used to be one of the most abundant salmon rivers in the entire world, but no longer, so I would like to ask my friend about the lack of species management and conservation.

She talked about the numbers of volunteers in her community who work to restore habitat. That also happens in my communities on the Coquitlam River and the Burnette River. There is a wonderful group of volunteers who really have worked their hearts and souls out to improve the natural habitat for the fisheries, but they are working against immense odds, with the lack of government support, to ensure that we have viable fisheries.

I would ask my friend to address those issues.

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

The hon. member for Vancouver Island North has the floor. I would like her to know that she has 2 minutes and 20 seconds and can manage it the way she wants, but there are other members who want to ask questions.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for New Westminster—Coquitlam for her concerns. I know that every member who lives on any salmon bearing river on the coast of British Columbia has to be concerned about the details of this act and what has been happening in the fishery for a number of years. We have seen a marked decline in our salmon stocks and other populations of fish. It is a sad indictment of what has been happening.

As others have said, it is a loss of our culture. Salmon has been the culture of my riding for many thousands of years, especially for first nations. My colleague from Skeena—Bulkley Valley also mentioned the oolichan trail, the grease trail. We have what is known as the grease trail in my riding, which runs from one side of the island to the other. It was used for many generations by first nations to transport the grease back and forth from their communities. They would catch the oolichan on one side and bring the grease over to the other.

They still make grease out of salmon and other fish that are quite oily. Their way of life is disappearing, sadly, and they are feeling that loss. They have spoken to me many times about the loss of one more piece of their culture if we lose any more of our salmon.

A number of months ago I wrote a letter to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and talked about the volunteer organizations in my riding and how they are the very backbone of habitat protection and management. The minister recognized this and said yes, we need to support these people, but unfortunately, as I said in my remarks, they are not being supported. The DFO has made many promises to them and has not followed through. Whether it is a lack of resources, funding or commitment--

[The Acting Speaker, Royal Galipeau]

It is with regret that I interrupt the member, but the time is up. The debate on Bill C-45 has now lasted more than five hours. From now on for the interventions there will be 10 minutes for speeches and five minutes for questions and comments. The hon. member for Vancouver East has the floor.

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am very happy to rise in the House today to speak to Bill C-45, An Act respecting the sustainable development of Canada's seacoast and inland fisheries.

First, I would like to thank our fisheries critic, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore, for doing an excellent job on raising public awareness about the bill. Other members of our caucus, the member for Vancouver Island North, the member for Nanaimo—Cowichan and the member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley, have all participated in the debate because we are so concerned about what the impact of the bill will be.

However, in particular, I think, the member for Sackville—Eastern Shore has really brought to the public's attention what is taking place with the bill. We should put it right on the record that we are dealing with a bill in regard to an act that has been around for a very long time. The existing Fisheries Act has been around for about 139 years.

Therefore, to bring in a new bill and a new act is a very significant move. We would not disagree with that. However, the manner in which that is done, the manner in which consultations take place, is something that very much concerns us. Of course, the substance of the bill itself is something that concerns us as well, so we have two issues with the bill. One is the manner in which it was brought forward. The second is the actual substance of the bill.

In terms of the process, we have heard from members, excepting from the government side, that there has been a lot of concern about the lack of consultation. There is no question that the history of fisheries and oceans in this nation has always generated enormous public debate.

In my own riding of Vancouver East, for example, we have fishers who go back generations. We have women who have worked in the fish packing plants and the canning plants. We have families who have gone out on the boats generation after generation. They have seen this resource, which has been seen as a national value, common property, and a community resource, dwindle and be whittled away, mostly because of mismanagement by DFO. There is a lot of interest in what the bill is about. As for any change that takes place, I will tell members, we will have something to say about it.

It is no surprise to me to hear that over 29 groups across the country wrote a letter to the government in which they told it to take out the bill, saying that there was not adequate consultation. In fact, we know that the amendment we are debating today, called a hoist amendment, is to actually delay the bill for another six months so that adequate consultation can take place.

I have to say that the NDP also has advocated that the bill be sent to a special committee so there could be a very fulsome consultation. That was not agreed to, so now we have the amendment, which we support, to actually hoist the bill and say that it should be put off for six months. We do that with legitimate concerns about what is going to happen to an act that has already been in existence for 139 years and is now to be dramatically changed.

That is not to say that changes are not required. They are, and the NDP would be the first to say that, but we are very concerned about the process that was used. The stakeholders and the people who have invested a huge amount of time into monitoring, analyzing and advocating for fisheries in Canada feel that they have not had a proper consultation. I think that if we are hearing this from people we have a responsibility as parliamentarians to respond to it and to say that we do believe this kind of consultation should take place.

I do think it is ironic, though, that one of the groups that does support the bill, the Mining Association of British Columbia, has as its senior director of policy and communications Byng Giraud, who writes and says that he supports the bill, he welcomes it, et cetera, but he also happens to be on the national council of the Conservative Party of British Columbia. He is obviously very happy with the state of things, but if we stack that up against the other 29 groups across the country that say they have not been heard, then I think we know which side we are on with that question.

Some of the concerns we have about the substance of the bill, and why we will be supporting the amendment, is that we really believe this bill does not adequately maintain the fishery as a public resource, a common property resource. To talk about maintaining a public character really does not go far enough for us. We feel that this will undermine the tradition that we have had in this country.

We are skeptical and suspicious of what the government actually has in mind for privatization, concentration and downloading. One looks at words in a bill very carefully and weighs up what they mean or may not mean. That is one concern.

A second concern we have with the bill is that it does not adequately maintain and strengthen conservation and the protection of fish and fish habitat. This is a huge issue. Often we have public hearings. I know as an urban representative that we often have processes when massive development is coming in. We have had some protection in the past to ensure that fish habitat are protected and there has to be a proper environmental assessment and evaluation.

We are very concerned that in Bill C-45 those provisions will be weakened. They will not be strong enough. When we get down to weighing it up and it becomes the environment and the sustaining of the fishery habitat versus the pressures of development, whether it is urban, mining or resource development, then we have to know that there is an open and transparent process. We have to know that the fishery habitat is going to be both conserved and protected.

We see that as a deficiency in the bill that causes the alarm bells to go off for us. It causes us to not want to support it.

We are also aware that the backdrop to this is cutbacks to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans over the next three years. We can see in the government's own estimates that there are funding cuts for science, conservation and protection programs. Again one has to question if the bill goes through and we marry it up with the cuts that are being planned, what kind of public oversight is there going to be? Who is going to be looking out for the fisheries habitat, conservation and protection? We know that the advocacy groups will be there, but the legislation should be providing those kinds of protections.

A further concern is the downloading that the bill will provide. This is an old story. Even in the 10 years that I have been here, we have seen what we call the devolvement, the downloading from the federal government to the provincial government. We have seen it with immigration, settlement programs, education, social programs and health care. I could go across the whole spectrum. It is Canadians who lose out because we lose the transparency about what is going on.

If we ask any group that is trying to track something, whether it is child care funding, immigrant settlement programs, money for post-secondary education or housing which is another big one, they will tell us that the downloading that takes place means that there is no accountability. This bill would further entrench that kind of process. We think it is alarming and should not be allowed.

I have given some of the reasons that we cannot support this bill. It should be hoisted. It should be sent off for a much longer review. I think there are legitimate concerns. That is why we are standing in the House today to speak about our opposition to the bill, not because the Conservatives brought it in, but we looked at this bill on its merits. We made a decision on its merits and it does not stack up. The bill is not good. It will not be good for the fishery. It will not be good for conservation and protection. It will not be good for first nations. We are here to say no, do not let the bill go ahead.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

Mr. Speaker, I have one question for the hon. member and it is actually a very local one for me.

The Petitcodiac Riverkeeper association in Moncton, New Brunswick was founded to protect the Petitcodiac River. Incidentally, the government has taken no action on its restoration. The association is very disturbed that if the proposed fisheries act is passed as is, the provisions that enabled the association to twice halt highly toxic discharges into our local river would be gone.

The hon. member obviously has a great breadth of experience and knowledge of the bill and its application. Could she inform the House and the people of Canada as to what other aspects and natural treasures we have in this country that might be so deleteriously affected by the hasty passage of this bill?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, although I am not familiar with that specific situation, I think the example the member raised dramatizes very well the concern we have about this bill, and that is that there will not be adequate environmental oversight or adequate protection. Groups will feel that they have nothing left to do but fight tooth and nail to make an intervention. We should not allow that to happen with any of our public resources. We should not allow that to happen as a matter of upholding public interests. That is really the underlying problem with the bill.

I am very glad my colleague raised that as an example. It is a very clear demonstration of why the bill is flawed and why the amendment needs to be supported.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, both the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce passed motions a few years ago in the spirt of being against draconian measures being put in by the minister of fisheries or under the Fisheries Act that were totally unreasonable in the situation, over-burdening and over-controlling, and not really of benefit to Canadians.

Does the member think the new Fisheries Act would be a plus or a minus for those types of concerns? Does she think it would help to reduce those types of concerns or aggravate them even further?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, having been a municipal councillor I am familiar with some of those debates. Urban developments were taking place and DFO would say an environmental assessment had to be done. Sometimes those are not easy things to go through. Sometimes those debates can become polarized, but it was very important that they be done.

The essential point is that if we allow a downloading and if we allow these agreements to take place, they will not be transparent. We have seen that in many other areas. People may feel that they are getting more local control, but in actual fact it ends up that nobody is in control. There is no accountability. That is why the federal government needs to have a strong presence in these kinds of resources to make sure that there is accountability, transparency and public oversight.

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

Mr. Speaker, we go by the actions of the government. The commercial fisherman from Delta—Richmond East was disbanded, off with his head more or less, from the fisheries committee because of his objection to the Fisheries Act. If the Conservative government thinks the bill is so good, why would it remove from the committee someone from its own party who knows about the fishery?

John Duncan, the special adviser to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans on the west coast, was also told that he had no part in the new bill. Why would he have been ignored if this was such an important piece of legislation?

[Libby Davies, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Speaker, that is very curious, and I can only respond that clearly the government does not like criticism even from its own members. That is obviously what happened. People get shut down and censored. If that is happening to government members, one can only imagine what is happening to advocacy groups and groups that promote conservation and protection. They are being shut down too.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to join in the debate on Bill C-45. Coming from the landlocked base of Winnipeg Centre, one may think it odd that I would rise to debate the Fisheries Act, but not at all is it unusual for me to be taking an active interest in the well-being of our Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the bill that regulates same. Many MPs would be interested to learn that the great inland sea of Lake Winnipeg is actually the largest freshwater fishery in this country. We do have an interest, of course, in maintaining the integrity of all of our fisheries resources and habitat.

We should always be cognizant of the fact, a point that my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore reminds us of regularly, that it is not just the Department of Fisheries, it is the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We cannot have one without the other. They are of equal weight. We forget that important aspect sometimes.

I want to thank my colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore for being a consistent champion of the fishery resource and the people who make their living by that resource over the decade that I have known him in the House of Commons. Also other speakers today have made passionate arguments of the importance of what we are doing in the final half hour of this parliamentary day.

As my colleague from Vancouver East pointed out, this act may be 139 years old, but it is the 139 years of mismanagement, of abuse of a precious resource that we are concerned with. It is imperative at this juncture in the history of our resources that we get it right, that we put things back on track. Never has our fish resource been at such a crisis point and when it is gone, it ain't never coming back. As we are reminded when species disappear, they disappear forever. It is shocking to learn that most of the great fish in our oceans are gone. Ninety per cent of the great fish in our oceans are gone. We are harvesting smaller and smaller species. Even they are being taxed beyond limits.

As a carpenter, I built a house one time for a scientist who worked at the biological research centre in Nanaimo. He was a wonderful, interesting guy. He had a beautiful house which I built for him overlooking Departure Bay. As we were building his house, he was telling me about the work that he did. He had a Ph.D. in mathematics. When I asked him what they did, he said that they were trying to age groundfish so that they would know when to best harvest them and when they should be throwing them back to allow them to reproduce.

I said, “Wait a minute. This is 1980, and I am building a house for you and you are just starting to do the research on when we should or should not harvest groundfish? This is appalling”. We must have thought naively that that resource would always be there for us no matter what we did to it, no matter what pollutants we dumped into the streams. It is not. It is a finite resource.

I will tell one more story about my days as a carpenter. I worked building houses in Kitsault, British Columbia, way up Alice Arm, north of Prince Rupert, up in some of the most magnificent country I have ever seen. We built a whole town there for a new molybdenum mine. We flew in and out to build the houses, a rec centre and the mine. The mine was started up and from the air we could see the plume of effluent working its way down Alice Arm into the inside passage between the Queen Charlotte Islands and Prince Rupert, chasing all of the life out of Alice Arm. That one molybdenum mine was shut down 18 months later. The mine was mothballed; the town was mothballed. We built that town and it sits there still as a ghost town. Alice Arm was sterilized from one year of irresponsible mining.

We want to make sure that the new Fisheries Act will respect the sustainable development of Canada's sea coast and inland fishery.

I would be irresponsible if I did not point out another disturbing motif or trend in the management of our fisheries that we have taken note of by the Conservative government. Not only is the Conservative government hellbent and determined to bring an end to the Canadian Wheat Board but it seems to have its eyes on the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation as well.

It seems to have its eye on supply management, period, even though this is a disastrous ideologically driven point of view. There is no business case for abolishing the Canadian Wheat Board and there is no business case for abolishing the Freshwater Fish Marketing Corporation.

I stand and speak today on behalf of all the fishers on Lake Winnipeg and communities like Gimli, Hnausa and Riverton, and the Icelandic people who came to Manitoba from Iceland, where the largest Icelandic population outside of Iceland lives in the heart of Manitoba, in Gimli. Their tradition and heritage was to make their living from the sea. They had subsistence farming from the land but really their resource was from Lake Winnipeg, what they call their great inland sea.

They chose to market their commodity through a supply management system that now seems to be under attack by this ideological crusade by the Conservative government. I rise to serve notice today that we will not tolerate it. We will not allow it to attack this great prairie institution. It will certainly not do it without a fight from our party.

I made note of some of the comments made by my colleague from Vancouver Island North. She made compelling and compassionate arguments talking about our fishing resources as part of our common wealth. It is a notion we do not entertain often enough in this place, I do not think. We should remind ourselves from time to time that we are blessed as Canadians to enjoy the common wealth of this great country and the resources therein. The access to them is part of our common wealth but with that common wealth comes common responsibility. The buck stops here in terms of responsibility for managing our precious and finite resources.

I am not satisfied and my colleagues are not satisfied. My colleague from Sackville—Eastern Shore who sits on the committee for whose opinion I have the utmost of respect is not satisfied that this particular bill in this particular form will protect that national heritage for which we are charged with the responsibility of supervising, not the least of which is reference to the rights of first nations to a share in the land and resource base.

If we are ever going to bridge the poverty gap, the prosperity gap, that exists between the social conditions of first nations and aboriginal people and the mainstream population, we must address a fair interpretation of the treaties that includes a sharing of land and resources.

The Indian Act is a statute that is almost as old as the Fisheries Act. People would be appalled to know that even though tradition, culture and heritage among first nations has it that the fishery and other land resources were a main part of their economy and their culture, there is not only no reference to access to an economic fishery in the Indian Act, it is kept out deliberately.

This is something a lot of people do not realize. The only thing that aboriginal people can use for economic development on their reserve or on their traditional territory is mud, gravel, sand and dirt. If one can make a living out of marketing mud, gravel, sand and dirt, then I suppose one could create a gravel pit. Anything else they have to ask specific permission from the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development to even cut down a single tree or catch a single fish above and beyond bear subsistence. Supreme Court rulings have been ruling in their favour, but nowhere is it entrenched in legislation or codified that they will have in fact some equitable share in land resources and fisheries.

My colleagues and I in the NDP are comfortable with our decision to support the hoist motion that would delay entertaining this bill for a six month period while it is given more fulsome study, where some of the legitimate concerns that have been addressed by my colleagues can be reviewed once again, and where true consultation can take place.

I remind my colleagues on the Conservative benches that there is a legal definition of consultation. It does not only mean passing it under the nose of somebody and saying “what do you think of this?” To truly consult we have to accommodate some of the concerns that are raised by the other party. That is consultation, to truly accommodate some of the legitimate issues raised.

I see that I am out of time already. It is a shame because I had a great deal more that I wanted to share with members. Perhaps in the question and comment period I can raise some of those points.

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have two quick questions. The member referred to the Wheat Board. I wonder if he could talk about just the process, not supply management, but whether the government that prides itself on being elected for integrity and accountability is honest and has integrity in the process of the Wheat Board. Should farmers who have said they fear reprisal should they have fear or is the government going through an honest process?

The member has lived in Dawson City and he knows quite well the importance of the placer industry. A few years ago, under the existing Fisheries Act, the minister took a draconian measure that would have eliminated the industry for placer miners who simply wash gravel with water. Does the hon. member think that placer miners would prefer the old act or the new act?