Bill C-68 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and other Acts in consequence

This enactment amends the Fisheries Act to, among other things,
(a) require that, when making a decision under that Act, the Minister shall consider any adverse effects that the decision may have on the rights of the Indigenous peoples of Canada recognized and affirmed by section 35 of the Constitution Act, 1982, include provisions respecting the consideration and protection of Indigenous knowledge of the Indigenous peoples of Canada, and authorize the making of agreements with Indigenous governing bodies to further the purpose of the Fisheries Act;
(b) add a purpose clause and considerations for decision-making under that Act;
(c) empower the Minister to establish advisory panels and to set fees, including for the provision of regulatory processes;
(d) provide measures for the protection of fish and fish habitat with respect to works, undertakings or activities that may result in the death of fish or the harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat, including in ecologically significant areas, as well as measures relating to the modernization of the regulatory framework such as authorization of projects, establishment of standards and codes of practice, creation of fish habitat banks by a proponent of a project and establishment of a public registry;
(e) empower the Governor in Council to make new regulations, including regulations respecting the rebuilding of fish stocks and importation of fish;
(f) empower the Minister to make regulations for the purposes of the conservation and protection of marine biodiversity;
(g) empower the Minister to make fisheries management orders prohibiting or limiting fishing for a period of 45 days to address a threat to the proper management and control of fisheries and the conservation and protection of fish;
(h) prohibit the fishing of a cetacean with the intent to take it into captivity, unless authorized by the Minister, including when the cetacean is injured, in distress or in need of care; and
(i) update and strengthen enforcement powers, as well as establish an alternative measures agreements regime; and
(j) provide for the implementation of various measures relating to the maintenance or rebuilding of fish stocks.
The enactment also makes consequential amendments to other Acts.

The House resumed from February 13 consideration of the motion that Bill C-68, An Act to amend the Fisheries Act and other Acts in consequence, be read the second time and referred to a committee.

Oceans Act

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to take us a bit further than Bill C-55. The Minister of Fisheries has thus far dealt with amendments in Bill C-68 and amendments to the Oceans Act in Bill C-55. He has not yet touched on the area that is of profound concern to people who want to see our fisheries areas protected and our oceans protected to protect the fish within those lines in a marine protected area on the map by really dealing with the threat of aquaculture in open waters in open pens.

I wonder if the parliamentary secretary can let us know when the minister and the parliamentary secretary will turn their attention to the threat posed by open-pen aquaculture of not-local species, with the contamination of sea lice and viruses that affect our wild fisheries.

[Terry Beech, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries]

Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise for a third time to express my support for Bill C-55 and to speak against the proposed amendment to refer the bill back to the standing committee for the purpose of reconsidering all of the clauses.

The Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard has been given a clear mandate to protect Canada's three oceans, our coasts, our waterways, and our fisheries to ensure they remain healthy for the benefit of future generations, something I thought about today when I saw so many young people in our gallery. This is a commitment that I take very seriously and very personally.

As I said previously, when we debated the bill at second reading, I am extremely honoured that my first piece of legislation as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard is for such a worthy cause.

The Oceans Act is a fundamental tool that Canadians rely upon to ensure the future health of our marine ecosystems. I truly believe that at the end of the day, a pristine and abundant environmental ecosystem is our greatest underlying economic driver.

Specific to today's debate, the Government of Canada has committed to Aichi target 11 under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. As well, I just returned from the World Ocean Summit, where I was able to share the leadership that Canada had once again taken to protect our oceans.

In addition to this bill, we are returning lost protections and incorporating modern safeguards into the Fisheries Act through Bill C-68. We have committed to making the protection of our oceans a pillar of our G7 agenda. This includes leadership in four key areas, including ocean health, sustainable fisheries, addressing plastics, and building resilient coastal communities. We were applauded for making such significant progress on our targets.

As a government, we are committed to protecting 10% of our oceans and marine areas by 2020. When we took office, less than 1% of these areas were protected, but today we have protected 7.75%, representing hundreds of thousands of square kilometres of new protections, protections of which I know Canadians are proud.

Our three oceans are complex webs of ecological and human systems that need to be understood, protected, and in many cases restored. Marine protected areas and marine protected area networks preserve these ecological links and protect diverse marine ecosystems and species. We will continue to establish marine protected areas through science-based decision-making, transparency, and in a manner that advances reconciliation with indigenous peoples.

It currently takes an average of seven years to designate an Oceans Act marine protected area. It requires time to undertake scientific assessments and socio-economic studies, as well as conduct consultations with governments, indigenous groups, and stakeholders. These are important steps that cannot be eliminated as they ensure that a marine protected area achieves its intended objectives while supporting local culture, the economy, and other needs. That said, a very clear understanding of what needs to be protected typically emerges well before all of the data is compiled.

Amendments to the Oceans Act under Bill C-55 propose solutions that will help us protect critical and unique areas of our Canadian oceans faster, without sacrificing the necessary science and consultation processes. The amendments ensure collaboration continues, requiring provinces, territories, indigenous groups, industry, and other stakeholders to be part of both the establishment and management processes.

Essentially, Bill C-55 proposes amendments to the Oceans Act to provide an additional tool that will allow for interim protection of specific areas through a ministerial order. This interim protection will be done following initial science and consultations, which would take around 24 months.

Following this step, the full federal regulatory process would continue to formally designate the marine protected area within the next five years. These amendments would ensure that when needed, an interim marine protected area could be put into place. New activities that risk further harm to ocean ecosystems, habitat, or marine life would not be allowed to occur in these interim protected zones.

These amendments not only respect current activities but also the need to conduct comprehensive consultations and scientific research before the final marine protected area is established.

Therefore, the time frame to fully establish a marine protected area may still take up to seven years, but there could be some interim protections in place within the first two. No longer can a lack of 100% scientific certainty be used to delay or prevent the protection of a sensitive marine area. Right now there is no protection until there is full protection, which is a problem these amendments are effectively solving, a problem that is amplified by an ocean that is so quickly changing, along with our climate. This policy is entirely in lockstep with the precautionary approach, which is a founding principle of conservation in Canada.

To put it another way, an interim marine protected area would freeze the footprint of ongoing activities. Under this concept, only ongoing activities, which are those activities occurring one year before the interim protection is in place, would be allowed to continue. For example, current fishing activities, or fishing activities where a moratorium is in place but licences are still held would be considered ongoing activities.

To further support this new concept, which is integral to the creation of an interim marine protected area, Bill C-55 also includes amendments that would require application of the precautionary principle when deciding whether to designate new marine protected areas. That means incomplete information or lack of absolute certainty would not be justification for avoiding protection where there would be a risk to the marine ecosystem.

Bill C-55 also includes modernized, updated, and strengthened enforcement powers, fines, and punishments under the Oceans Act.

The proposed amendments to the Oceans Act have received broad support during outreach efforts to discuss the bill. Canadians recognize the amendments would not short-circuit the development of sound science or cut off people's opportunity to collaborate and be consulted in the development of marine protected areas. Instead, they would ensure protection would be put in place quicker, in the interests of all Canadians.

We would be able to act on initial science and information to help these areas safe while additional research, engagement, and regulatory processes would be worked through.

Supporting the health of our ocean is necessary to ensure that future generations will be able to rely on the unique and precious marine ecosystems and resources that underline our environment and economy. It should go without saying, but Canadians are counting on us to protect our oceans, a resource that at times we have too often taken for granted.

I would be remiss if I did not take this opportunity to congratulate the fisheries and oceans committee on the great work it has done on this bill and on additional studies it has taken on, including several fisheries and MPAs, which was raised by the previous member. An example of its extraordinary work is visible in Bill C-68, amendments to the Fisheries Act. The committee made 32 recommendations after examining the changes made to the act by the previous government. We now know all 32 recommendations were not only considered but incorporated into the act.

I was also very impressed by the committee's deliberations and thoughtful consideration of Bill C-55. It consulted broadly and incorporated amendments from colleagues on both sides of the House. This is the primary reason sending the bill back to committee does not make any sense. The committee has considered the legislation clause by clause and now it is time to pass it for third reading.

I invite everyone in the House to support Bill C-55, an act to amend the Oceans Act, and to oppose the Conservative amendment.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, what a rare chance to be able to thank my friend from South Okanagan—Shuswap. He is quite correct. I had earlier today jotted down that we were moving to Bill C-55 this afternoon, and things do move quickly. We are on Bill C-68. Therefore, I regret that the Fisheries Act is moving so quickly, with time allocation on it. However, I support the bill.

I am so relieved to see the restoration and the protection of fish habitat in the bill. We have had the Fisheries Act since 1867. Protecting fisheries, including fish habitat, was a provision brought in by the current fisheries minister's father, the late and much respected Romeo LeBlanc. He also served as our governor general. Having those sections ripped out of the Fisheries Act in the spring of 2012 in an omnibus budget bill of over 420 pages that changed 40 different acts, with no consultation, not a single amendment allowed, and no proper hearings, was an abomination in this place. I am glad to see at least this part of it repaired.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would caution the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands not to get Bill C-55 confused with Bill C-68. Bill C-55 is the Oceans Act. Bill C-68 is an act to amend the Fisheries Act.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a sad day here when members cannot have their question of privilege heard in this House. I respect your position, but when we have members standing on a point of order and simply being shut down, it is a dismal day for democracy in Canada. What we have seen this week with the government shutting down debate and calling time allocation on multiple bills has to make one wonder what it is that the Liberals are trying to change the channel on, and it is disturbing.

I will start on a lighter note, noting that this is the second half of a 20-minute time slot that I was allowed. I had 10 minutes yesterday. It has now been almost 24 hours to carry on this section of the debate. I was debating whether I should wear the same clothes so if the two videos get clipped together it does not look like I did a Superman change. Oh, pardon me, that would be a super-person change, or a super-people change.

It has been almost 24 hours since I began my speech to Bill C-55, so I want to recap a bit of what has taken place. In December 2016, I saw what the current government may intend to do with changes to the way marine protected areas are established in B.C., so I put forward a motion at the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans that the committee undertake a study on the criteria and process for establishing MPAs in Canada. That motion was accepted and approved by the committee members. We eventually got around to starting that study in about April 2017. We travelled to the north and to the west coast in June. We travelled to the east coast in the fall. As I said yesterday, we heard differing testimony on how the MPA process was working.

We heard that with the process that is taking place right now, in some cases, it took seven to 10 years to establish an MPA. That is a fairly lengthy time, but we heard that those MPAs that were created under that process were accepted by the communities and in fact in many cases were put forward by and promoted by the communities that were most affected. What we heard was that the proposed changes that Bill C-55 could bring forward would eliminate the opportunity for those fishers and those communities to have input into how those MPAs are created, and it was quite discerning. We heard that many times in Atlantic Canada and yet the current government, with full representation in Atlantic Canada, has chosen to ignore the testimony that we heard there.

The committee study on MPAs has been kicked aside and sidelined many times. We started a study on small-vessel licensing, which kicked the study aside. Now we are going to see legislation on Bill C-68 coming to the committee so the study on MPAs will be further kicked aside. I question whether the Liberals may be causing this because they do not want that testimony exposed to the public, and the recommendations that may come out of that committee study. The recommendations we would have seen would have indicated the problems with the new proposed process, so for some reason the Liberals are pushing aside that MPA study and the report that would result out of it, kicking it aside and fast-tracking by time allocation the debate on Bill C-55 so that we have no process of really exposing the issues and the problems that are in the bill. Again, it is an affront to democracy and just an example of the arrogance that the government has been showing over the past couple of weeks. It is really disturbing to me and should be disturbing to all Canadians.

There is another part of this scenario that we can only speculate on. Is there another reason that the fisheries minister wants to get this legislation out there and get it in front of the committee to tie up the committee's time? That may be because Conservative members on the committee have started to expose the surf clam scam.

One may ask what the surf clam scam is all about. The fisheries minister decided unilaterally to expropriate 25% of the surf clam quota from a holder in Newfoundland. He then issued that quota to a non-existent company that was established by close Liberal friends and family members. Unbelievable. The threads are starting to unravel on that surf clam scam.

I project that perhaps time allocation on Bill C-55 and Bill C-68, an act to amend the Fisheries Act, may be a cover-up process to take attention away from what really should be concerning, that being a perceived conflict of interest.

That takes us all the way back to the mandate letters that were provided to Liberal cabinet members by the Prime Minister, which indicated that there should be no actual or perceived conflict of interest and yet we have seen it happen time and time again with the government, not just perceived conflict of interest but actual conflict of interest. The finance minister was found in conflict. There are still questions around the Prime Minister, who was found guilty of breaking the law four times and had to address that with the conflict commissioner.

I will get back to Bill C-55 and some of our concerns, which I touched a bit on yesterday regarding wildlife management, fisheries management, totally protected areas, and no-take zones as they are being referred to in reference to the Oceans Act and MPAs.

Similar things to those no-take zones have been put in place on land and in parks across Canada and they have created problems. They have also taken place in the U.S. and we have seen problems. We heard testimony from a U.S. scientist at committee who explained what had happened with the California MPA process. It was absolutely devastating to the recreational fishery and the supporting sectors down there. There was a 20% drop in licence sales and vehicle sales relating to towing equipment for boats. It was absolutely devastating for that process. We cannot afford to see that same process take place here in Canada. We need full consultation.

This legislation would give the minister overarching power to decide to close an area on extremely short notice, only taking into account one year's previous activity within that area, not going back eight to 10 years to see what might have been there. I also spoke a bit about this yesterday. I spoke about how a halibut fishery had recovered and was going back to an area in Nova Scotia. Fishermen had not been able to fish there for five to 10 years but suddenly the halibut were starting to come back, so they were going back to fish in that area. As I said, fish move, fisheries move, and ocean currents change.

This legislation proposes to eliminate all of the background information that can be gathered, the process of consulting with local fishermen, local communities, and the science community for establishing what should be a well-received and well-accepted MPA, as has been happening in the process already.

We have also heard that there are other processes for protecting our oceans and a lot of those are in place already in Canada with rockfish conservation areas on our west coast.

Those areas are not MPAs, but now some are saying that just to meet our targets we should include those. I do not disagree with that. That is a good process. However, those conservation areas need to be established, have long-term goals, but also the long-term background, which the bill fails to allow.

It has been interesting to have make the same speech almost 24 hours apart.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Technically we can continue on with what we're doing. However, it's been the practice of committee...and of course we primarily go by convention in many cases. We would go to Bill C-68 given the fact of prioritization when we receive the order of reference from the House on that particular bill. I hope that provides more clarification for you.

Ms. Jordan.

[The Chair, Liberal, Scott Simms]

Bill C-68.

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Mr. Chair, I'm seeking clarification, and I think you've provided some. Let's say this motion passes and then Bill C-68 is forwarded to this committee. What happens?

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Chair, I appreciate the comments from the others around the room.

We've heard testimony in the first three meetings on how fishermen's lives and investments have been put at risk. They're risking by fishing on vessels that have been modified and later finding out they weren't modified. They're having to spend incredible sums to remodify their modifications. I can't understand why the committee members would not support moving forward on this motion and not ending the study entirely...but let's get going so that lives and investments aren't put further at risk by further delay. We know that it's inevitably going to come because of the time allocation on Bill C-68....

[Fin Donnelly, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

I think Mr. Miller brings up a good point when he talks about the intent of the motion if it's followed. The question is—and I wonder if Mr. McDonald realizes it—what could happen if this isn't passed. Perhaps I'd ask our clerk to clarify in that event.

Mr. Chair, as you know, several times I've brought up Bill C-68 coming to this committee. You've said we can't speculate. Fair enough, and we're still dealing with hypotheticals, but in the event that Bill C-68 does come to this committee, does that supersede the current studies? Maybe you or the clerk could give some clarification as to whether that's actually the case. The Conservatives have a good point.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Certainly, Mr. Chair. I by no means meant that this study should be over, but I can see the potential delays because of having to deal with Bill C-68 within committee. As we know, legislative business takes precedence over committee studies, so this process could be delayed by weeks or months, or possibly into the fall, because of the process of dealing with legislative business in the committee.

I certainly by no means wanted to imply that we were going to end this process, but I see an urgency and a necessity to address the inconsistencies between two federal departments that are causing great strife in Atlantic Canada, with fishermen, their families, and their communities. Those two ministries need to meet to start to resolve these issues sooner rather than later.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

First, I want to thank our witnesses this morning for taking the time out of their busy lives to come in and testify before us today, but I'm going to use my time a little differently this morning, Mr. Chair.

During the course of the three meetings we've had on this study, the committee has received testimony from 20 witnesses. In the testimony, the committee has received evidence describing the federal government's misaligned processes, administered by multiple levels of federal government entities, for licensing of commercial fishing vessels.

At times, the evidence, including that from federal departmental officials, has been contradictory. Evidence has described a process administered by multiple federal entities that is inconsistent in a way that fails to ensure the safety or regulatory certainty for commercial vessels in Atlantic Canada.

It's reasonable for this committee to believe that risk to human life on board commercial fishing vessels can greatly be reduced in the process for licensing commercial fishing vessels if it is rationalized and harmonized among federal entities.

Rather than see this study derailed, in light of what's been taking place recently and the time allocation vote on Bill C-68, the Fisheries Act, which will be coming before this committee and which would disrupt this committee's activities for probably six or more meetings, I'd like to move the following motion so that action can be taken before further risk to life and the certainty of commercial and family fishing operations is put further at risk.

Therefore, I move: that, within 48 hours of passing this motion, the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans send to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Transport a letter and attach to the letter the evidence received by the committee during meetings 87, 90 and 91; and that the letter respectfully request that the two ministers meet by April 10, 2018, within two weeks, to discuss the process of licensing commercial fishing vessels, and the applicable factors of vessel length, as administered by their respective departments; and in that letter respectfully request the ministers direct the appropriate representatives of their departments to meet to identify steps to resolve the apparent inconsistencies of the licensing process by April 24, 2018, within 4 weeks; and in that letter respectfully request that representatives of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Department of Transport invite all holders of licences for commercial vessels issued by federal entities in Atlantic Canada to attend consultation sessions or submit input in writing so that all licence holders may provide input for improving the licensing process; and respectfully request that by June 5, 2018, within 10 weeks, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and the Minister of Transport provide the committee a written summary of input received and steps identified by the ministers and their departmental representatives to harmonize and rationalize the process used by federal entities to license commercial vessels and increase safety of those operating and working on those vessels; and respectfully request that the appropriate minister, or both ministers, initiate the regulatory and legislative changes required to implement the steps identified to harmonize and rationalize the process used by federal entities to license commercial vessels and increase the safety of those operating and working on those vessels.

[Mel Arnold, Conservative, North Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Mr. Speaker, this will be the second time that my speech is cut in half because of debate closure for the day and I have to continue the next day.

This will be my first debate without a prepared speech, so I will be taking a bit of time to pause to make sure my thoughts are coherent.

First, I want to talk about the timeline of what has taken place over the last year and a half on the study of marine protected areas and this legislation.

I looked at the mandate letter to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, and I saw a comment there about protecting Canada's coastlines. This was also a Liberal promise. The Liberals did not make any commitments. They only made promises, which they continue to break. There was a promise in that mandate letter to protect Canada's coastlines.

In December 2016, I put forward a motion in the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans that the committee undertake a study to look at the criteria and the process for establishing marine protected areas in Canada, to determine whether the process that had been taking place was an efficient and effective way of doing things. As members have mentioned, it sometimes took seven to 10 years for a marine protected area to be established.

The committee finally started that study in April 2017. We travelled north to Inuvik, Paulatuk, and Tuktoyaktuk, and talked to people there. They have established MPAs that were put forward by the communities. Those MPAs are supported by the communities, and they have been very effective. We also travelled to Prince Rupert.

In the fall of 2017, we travelled to eastern Canada, and what we saw there was a totally different story. Marine protected areas were being proposed or established by government without any consultation with the local fishermen or the local communities that depended on access to the resources in those areas. There is the odd one that was proposed by the community, and it is working, but we saw opposition to the way this was being put forward. There was no good consultation with the fishermen, who felt that their livelihood, their families, their boats, and their communities were being put at risk by the imposition of government over them. We have seen this process play out over and over, particularly with this government, with its “trust us; government knows best” attitude.

We are getting into a really scary situation. We see it with the values test in the Canada summer jobs program. We see it with Service Canada not being able to refer to individuals as Mr. or Mrs., Sir or Madam. These are values tests being imposed by a government that says Canadians should trust it because it knows best. Canadians are concerned with that. I am concerned with that. My constituents are concerned with that.

Conservatives truly care about the environment. My background is in conservation. That is how I arrived in the House of Commons.

My first interest in politics showed up in the 1990s, when a former Liberal government introduced a long gun registry. I owned one older deer hunting firearm. I went to the local fish and game club and asked what I would have to do to comply with a government that thought it knew best.

An older gentleman in the club said that I should become a member. Not being one to sit back and keep my mouth shut, within a few months someone said I should become a director. A couple of years later, people said that I should become vice-president. I worked my way through that organization, through the regional branch of the BC Wildlife Federation, and eventually became president of the BC Wildlife Federation for two years.

In that time, I found conservationists and Conservatives hand in hand. They were firearms owners, guys working with boots in the streams, doing wild game counts, actual work on the ground for fish, wildlife, and habitat. We did not dream about locking it up. We thought about using it so we were getting something from those resources to put back into them.

What the Liberals are proposing, without consultation, is identifying huge swaths of the ocean and locking them up, doing this only in consideration of one previous year of traditional use or existing use. In our travel to eastern Canada, we heard from fishermen who were now fishing halibut in an area where there had not been halibut in five to seven years. If an MPA had been established there as a no-take area to protect the halibut, people would not be allowed to fish.

The government is proposing to draw lines on a map to protect an area when everything is changing. Fish move, water currents change. The government would protect an area through a space on a map and a line on a map without taking the time that had been taken in previous governments and in previous roles. Sometimes it was seven to 10 years. That is not a very fast process, but when they were done, they were done well and they worked. That should not change. If it takes that long to do something right, then do it. A slap-happy, push it forward, bulldoze it through method is not the right way to do things.

I will get back to the committee and the study it undertook on marine protected areas. That study has now been pushed back and delayed. It may never see the light of day because of the time allocation. The Liberals have called time allocation on Bill C-55, to amend the Oceans Act, which deals with marine protected areas. They are calling time allocation on Bill C-68, to amend the Fisheries Act. Both of those acts will have to come before the committee. The committee has not been able to wrap up its study on marine protected areas, so the Liberals are bulldozing, steamrolling over a committee process that was put in place. Now is it going to be totally ignored by a government that simply tell us to trust it because it know best. The Liberals do not want to hear about the consultation. They do not want to hear the testimony that concerned fishers and communities have put forward. Why?

Are they pushing back because we have asked for half an hour with the public safety adviser? I propose that may be the case, but that should not be the way government operates. Governments should listen to the people. In this case, the Liberals are shutting us down. We are not going to be able to finish our study at committee and make the recommendations to the government. I imagine there would have been a long series of recommendations from that study. We have a number of members on that committee from Atlantic Canada. I do not think they liked what they were hearing about the proposed process either. The previous process may not have been perfect, but the proposed process really concerned them the most. They were going to be shut out. They were going to be disallowed from their current areas of access and from their current process.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Mr. Speaker, it is truly a pleasure for me to rise and to consume about 30 minutes of this House's time on this issue.

I will couch my opening remarks by saying it was a privilege for me at one point in time in my life to earn a zoology degree in fisheries and aquatic sciences from the University of Alberta. I worked as a fisheries technician and on many fisheries experiments. I worked as a national park warden in Parks Canada enforcing the Fisheries Act, among other things, and of course as a conservation officer in the province of Alberta doing much the same, so I have a little working knowledge on this. I am proud to have folks like Dr. David Schindler as one of the professors I learned something from. If I told people when I was going to school, that would probably date both of us and I do not think that is a particularly constructive thing to do at this point in time.

Suffice it to say, I remained active. I was a fishing guide in the Northwest Territories while I was going to university. I spent a lot of time on Great Bear Lake, and of course on the north coast where the Coppermine River flows into the Arctic Ocean. I have maintained my love of the outdoors as an avid hunter and angler ever since. These kinds of issues are near and dear to my heart, especially when it comes to recreational fishing, or as it is more affectionately known, sport fishing.

These issues are very important. I will start by making some comparisons. When I was going to the University of Alberta years and years ago, there was a plan at that time by the World Wildlife Fund and the Canadian wilderness societies and so on that they wanted a 12, 75, 12 plan. They wanted to have 12% of all the land mass in Canada protected under the same kind of statutory protection a national park would have. That meant there would be no opportunities to do anything, no development and so on. There would be complete protection for that area. I do not want to call it conservation. I call it a preservation type of protection that they would have in these areas.

The other 75% of Canada would be considered areas that would be managed, like forest management areas. These would be areas where we would have human activity that would go on, but there would be zoning. Activities would be permitted, but they would be heavily regulated by the federal, provincial, or municipal government. Then about another 12% of our land mass at that particular point in time would be a complete disturbance areas. This would be areas for our cities, roads, major industrial developments, and so on.

I remember asking the question when I was in university if 12, 75, 12 was going to be enough. That adds up to 99, but members will get the point. As we have seen evolve through time, those numbers no longer hold true today with what certain groups are asking for. They are asking for more of that preservation land. They are asking for stricter regulations on the 75%. Of course, nobody wants to take responsibility for the 12% because that would mean we would have to tear down cities and do all those kinds of things in order to restore it back to its natural habitat, which is not a reasonable thing to ask people to do.

Who bears the burden then every time somebody asks for more protection? We have to take that protection out of that 12% or out of that 75% to add to the 12%. I am talking about the preserved areas. Who suffers the consequences of that? I am using this as an example on land to make my point later on about the protected areas and the marine areas. Who bears that price? It is everybody who lives in rural Canada. It is everybody who farms, everybody who relies on forestry, and everybody who is a fisherman, or a fisher person, or fisher peoplekind, depending on what the moniker of the day is.

The point is that everything we ask to happen in the natural environment generally happens outside the confines of city limits. This is not an aspersion on folks who live in cities, and I live in a city myself. However, having grown up on a farm, I understand every time somebody has to pay a price out in our so-called natural areas that price is borne by the people who live there or make their livings in these rural, remote, or non-city areas.

The same is going to actually hold true for those who earn a living in our marine areas. This would be our commercial fishermen. This would be anybody who does any tourism, anybody who does any type of business, and of course first nations people who earn a living off the coastal waters of our country. We have seen the absolute damage, the economic damage, that can be done to these communities when we do not get things right.

As we know, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans is tasked with maintaining fish stocks. We know in Atlantic Canada, going back to the early 1990s, some of the issues that happened there when we applied a purely political decision over good science and technical information. I am referring specifically to the collapse of the cod fishery.

I was a fairly young man at the time. I was studying in university in the late 1980s and early 1990s at about the same time that the cod fishery was closed. I believe it was in 1993 when it was closed. It was closed because it was mismanaged. At that time there were over one million seals in the Atlantic Ocean. Today we have six million or seven million seals there. It was a big problem. The fishermen had to move to other resources, such as herring, lobsters, and other fisheries. They had to adapt to overcome the loss of the cod.

To this day we have had a moratorium. I want to talk about what it means. The moratorium on the cod fishery means that no one is allowed to do it, so the cod for all intents and purposes are preserved. The cod population stocks are under a preservation style of protection. Have the cod stocks actually come back? No, they have not. We have moved this from a managed fishery into a completely protected class and even that movement in and of itself has not had the desired effect or outcome that we wanted.

We have not stopped any of the other activity that happens off of the east coast. There are still ships coming in and out. I would argue we have lots of ships with foreign oil coming into the east coast. It would be nicer to have a pipeline going from Alberta to our friends in the east, but I digress. It is a much easier thing to manage than tankers full of oil coming in on the east coast. It would be interesting to see if we had a tanker ban on the east coast the same as we do on the west coast. It seems to be a bit of a double standard there, but I am getting off topic and I will come back to marine protected areas.

When we moved from a management mode of the cod stocks into a preservation mode, it did not solve the problem. I am not saying it was not the right decision, but it did not solve the problem because all of the other aspects of managing the cod fishery have now fallen by the wayside. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans, rather than restoring the cod stocks or managing the cod stocks, and I am not saying they are not doing some of that work, but now it is more interested in working the fisheries currently before it.

Now the Liberal government has proposed moving to a massive increase of the marine protected areas in our coastal waters. I was lucky to be a member of the fisheries committee in previous Parliaments because of my experience. As a matter of fact, people used to laugh when they found out a farm boy from central Alberta was a member of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for all those years, until they found out I actually knew a little about fisheries, other than how bad a fisherman I am.

Notwithstanding that, I learned a ton over the years and I was very honoured to go with the standing committee on a trip up north. We went to places like Prince Rupert, Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, and Paulatuk. We talked with the people who are going to be impacted by these marine protected areas there. The impacts and concerns are very real. People from local hunting and trapping associations up north came in droves to those meetings and made their voices heard. They are very concerned because they feel there has not been adequate consultation regarding some of the areas being proposed. There are very good questions about the risks of what is going to happen in the marine protected areas.

This is where we get to the conversation about what the international standard for a marine protected area is and how Canada is going to define a marine protected area. If we ask someone from the United Nations, that person would consider the marine protected area to be a no activity zone whatsoever. This is complete protection or what I referred to earlier as that preservation mentality. I am not saying it is right or wrong; I am just saying that is the mode most people would see when they hear about a marine protected area. They would see it as having the same protections that a national park would have.

Everyone knows that we cannot hunt in a national park. We cannot drill for anything in a national park. As a matter of fact, I have been an MP for 12 years and resort owners and so on in our national parks have not seen any changes over the last 12 years because it is so hard to get approval to get anything done in a national park. I am not saying it is right or wrong; it is just very difficult to do that because of the mandate Parks Canada has on its preservation, ecological integrity, and the other types of goals and ambitions that are laid out in the Canada National Parks Act.

Those same goals and ambitions are laid out in the legislative changes that are currently before the House with Bill C-55 and Bill C-68, which the government opposite just moved time allocation on, a bill that might be disastrous for the Alberta economy. It is just another straw on the camel's already broken back when it comes to the energy sector. However, I digress again and must return to Bill C-55.

With Bill C-55, the aboriginal groups, the Inuit, the people at the Prince Rupert Port Authority, the first nations groups, the Lax Kw'alaams and all the other groups we talked with out there are very concerned. PNCIMA was brought up. They are very concerned about the amount of foreign money that is coming in to influence policy decisions. The money coming in has been used by some aboriginal or indigenous groups out there to inadvertently stop what they thought was going to be an increase in the conversation. They realized they have sided with people who took money from a bunch of organizations that actually have a completely different mandate than what the first nations have. There is a court action happening right now where first nations groups in B.C. are raising funds to take the Government of Canada to court, citing all of the barriers it has put in place in the name of standing up for first nations, which will deprive them of economic opportunities going forward. This is something that is of very legitimate concern with Bill C-55 and the marine protected areas.

We have a tanker ban off the northern part of the west coast. Most people think that the entire west side of B.C. is coastal, but it is not. Just a little over a third of the west side of the province of British Columbia has access to the coast. The rest of it is in Alaska. We would have to go through Alaska in order to get some things done if we wanted to use the coastline in that case. We have a very small area to use along the British Columbia coast to begin with, and now a significant part of that coast is denied access, depending on what one is trying to ship or move.

I might be a bit cynical, but this is what the folks on the west coast and on the north coast who we met at committee are thinking. The folks up north want to be able to continue to hunt whales. One of the marine protected areas that the government is considering putting in place is right in the mouth of the Mackenzie River and the delta where it comes in. That happens to be an area of shallow water where the belugas come in. It is a safe place for the Inuit hunters to go. They go there every year to hunt belugas. If it becomes a marine protected area to protect the belugas, which seems to be a noble cause, it would exempt the Inuit from harvesting in that area. They would have to try and find those belugas somewhere else in order to maintain their traditional hunt. That is a problem for the first nations people there.

Are we going to create marine protected areas in Canada that do not actually meet the international standard of what is expected of us with respect to marine protected areas, or are we going to have a made-in-Canada solution, forgo our international obligations and then do our best? I am not sure what the government's intentions are with respect to that. It would be great to see. However, we seem to have a lot more questions than we do answers, and the legislation is not particularly clear on some of these questions.

I will go back to the port in Prince Rupert. We met with the port authorities there. They are already very much concerned. Most people in Canada do not know that most of the container goods that we see going through the western part of Canada on their way east—and a ton of containers that come to the west coast come in through Prince Rupert, which has a great container ability—go by rail through Canada all the way down to Chicago. This is supplying goods from the Asia-Pacific marketplace into central North America as a distribution hub. It is an amazing facility. It is a very small community. It is a great provider of jobs. There are great economic opportunities there.

There was a proposal for an LNG terminal in Prince Rupert. We know what happened with the LNG proposal. That seems to have gone by the wayside. Given the fact that there will be a tanker ban, there is no way anybody would even consider moving forward with an LNG terminal in that area.

If I were the kind of person who wanted to be bitter and vindictive about making sure that the tanker ban held its way for all time, I would consider putting a marine protected area across the Dixon Entrance and across the Hecate Strait. This would pretty much mean that particular area, depending on the provisions that were put in place for the marine protected area, could shut down shipping altogether in those areas, or at least really restrict what one is able to do.

This again brings me back to my point. What is a marine protected area supposed to do? Is it supposed to protect the water? Is it supposed to protect the species living in the water? Is it supposed to protect the benthic area directly below the water column along the sea floor? These are all questions to which we do not have answers.

If we look at the sunlit zone, which is the area where the human eye can see sunlight at the top of a water column, there is not a whole lot of activity there. There are some fish species, some algae, and some plankton. However, all of the stuff is very much moving as currents move in and out. Does it make any sense to try and protect a wave while it is a-wave? It does not make any sense at all. These things are going to move around the ocean. Are we protecting that area? Some would say yes. Some would say no.

Are we protecting a rearing area for whales or other types of migratory species that use the water? Are they going to be birds, fish, aquatic mammals, or terrestrial animals, where a certain part of their life cycle relies on the marine environment? Are we adequately taking into consideration where those protections should be best placed?

Are we taking a look at the littoral zone, and are we going to protect it? Are we going protect the benthic zone? Are we going to shut down commercial fishing, for example? Are we going to be shutting down dragging or trawling along the bottom of the sea for fish species? That is maybe a good thing, but maybe it is not. I happen to believe that, in certain cases, if it is done in the right place, protections on the bottom of the sea floor are great. They are great for the groundfish that live there, especially if it is an area rich in groundfish that usually stay in that area. An area of refugia actually creates species all around it.

I will go back to one of my jobs as a park warden, which was to patrol the north boundary of Jasper National Park on horseback. Why I ever gave that job up in the glorious Rocky Mountains riding horses, to this day I do not understand. However, my job was to protect the park boundary from poachers. Where did everyone go hunting for trophy rams or bighorn sheep? Well, they would go hunting where the rams were. The rams were in the national park, because they understood the refugia, and they would go back into the park any time they felt threatened. They knew where the boundary was. It was an interesting thing to watch. That area of refugia continued to populate the sheep populations as they migrated out, which is the same thing with other species.

This is not necessarily bad policy, but it is not an effective one-size-fits-all policy. It is going to work well for some species of groundfish, but it is not going to do anything for some species of fish that might migrate through or that do not use the area on a regular basis. We have to ask the question of whether the marine protected area is in the right spot.

I have a lot of questions about this proposed legislation and what the consequences of it might be. I have highlighted the fact that the cod fishery, taking the protectionist approach, has not exactly worked if we are not taking a serious look at management. When we put things into that category of preservation, it becomes very difficult to do any management, because we have to get double approvals for everything.

Imagine if Parks Canada said we need to shoot grizzly bears, wolves, and mountain lions in order to protect caribou. It is not unfathomable that this might be a desperation policy at some point down the road, as growth of the wolf, grizzly bear, and mountain lion populations continues to explode in the eastern slopes region of Alberta. These animals are everywhere, so much so that, in some cases, we cannot find any ungulates anymore. Rather than stopping economic activity such as oil and gas exploration or forestry, we are going to shut those industries down and not do anything at all about predator control.

I do not see some of my colleagues from Atlantic Canada who were here earlier, but I know that a lot of them, even though they might not say it in front of a microphone, hear the same things that I hear. I have been there many times with fisheries, and they are asking for control of the seal population in order to allow the cod stocks to come back. However, imagine a situation where we create a marine protected area around some of the islands where grey seals or harbour seals rear their pups. It comes down to the point that someday somewhere, someone will say we have to have the courage to manage these populations and do what is right.

Imagine trying to manage predator control in a protected area where the needs of the wildlife are put before the needs of everybody else, a fishery, or whatever the case might be. I have news for members. It is romantic to think we have the ability to have these protected areas and that they can operate in isolation from the rest of the world, but that is not the case. The bill before us could seriously limit the ability of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and other organizations to effectively manage wildlife populations and allow other economic activities to grow. Therefore, the bill should not be rushed through Parliament. It should be given every opportunity, which is why I move:

That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following therefor:

“Bill C-55, An Act to amend the Oceans Act and the Canada Petroleum Resources Act, be not now read a third time but be referred back to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans for the purpose of reconsidering all of the clauses.