Fisheries Committee on May 6th, 2008

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

The federal and provincial departments quite often have their own acts under which they operate, and they have certain responsibilities. Some of them are similar; some are actually duplicates, to a point. Even if they don't have them in some areas, they pretend they have them or get involved, and that could happen on both sides.

When we came to the department, one of the things we did in relation to our work, particularly in relation to habitat, where you usually see this, whether it be in working with a community on a housing development, working in relation to problems caused by a river or a bridge or whatever, or whether we're talking about the part we play in the development of a mineral operation or a mine site, where we quite often become the lead department.... We're heavily involved with the tar sands, even though, as you know, there's probably not a lot of water or fish, but there's enough to cause us to be involved. In anything that affects fish or fish habitat, we are involved.

When environmental conditions are involved and we're doing inspections and whatever other studies, do we have to do it, and then does NRCan have to do it, and then does forestry have do it, and then does the provincial environment...? My answer to that is no. That's where, by working together, we can save a lot of time, money, and particularly a lot of aggravation for the proponents of whatever is going on.

One of the first things we did was amalgamate within and talk to the heads of our different divisions to see where we could be more concise within our own department. Then we set up key contacts with other departments, particularly NRCan and Environment Canada. These are the ones we work more closely with.

At the same time, the Minister of NRCan, Minister Lunn, was coming up with the idea of a major projects office, which speaks more or less to this, bringing all these assessments under one sort of umbrella.

We've developed a pretty good relationship with many provinces. I would point out particularly British Columbia, which has been front and centre; we do a lot of work out there. New Brunswick has been very cooperative, and P.E.I. has, and Nova Scotia, and we've worked closely with Newfoundland, to an extent.

It comes down to the relationships you build yourselves, when you can feel free, when you have that open relationship where you can sit and plan and agree beforehand on doing something. When you don't work together, when you don't talk to each other, when you're out to try to get one up on somebody else, it doesn't work.

I don't see a lot of that. I see a lot of cooperation coming. I think the time is right, Mike, to zero in on all these studies, whether for the small housing development or the tar sands project, to work with the provinces and the agencies to cut out duplication and waste and to set certain standards, whether for provincial involvement or federal involvement, as long as these standards are met and not compromised and time can be saved. Everybody benefits, and the people themselves are the winners in something like that.

[Mike Allen, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

The next question is with respect to the section in the estimates on page 9 of the presentation that was made to us the other day. It was talking about the Capital Planning Secretariat. One of the things we've heard about concerning small craft harbours is investment and having a long-term plan for these harbours. What we're talking about is the allocations that are made to the regions contingent upon investment plans that vary from year to year. It seems to me this is running around a little bit.

Minister, I'm not sure whether one of your people can answer this, but what is the headquarters infrastructure required to set up these long-term investment plans? Who is responsible? What is the process for engaging the regions in collecting these plans, so that you can have very well-thought-out investment plans for small craft harbours?

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Again, it sounds good. I say that because, first, we have a major chunk of infrastructure from coast to coast—I was going to say the coast; we're not necessarily on the third coast yet, but we're getting there. We need a lot of infrastructure out there. They have great resources, which they can't harvest unless they get wharves. I doubt whether there is a member here in the fishing province that doesn't have major problems with infrastructure. We're having a job even keeping our heads above water.

A long-term plan for wharves is not like a long-term plan for housing, where you can see the areas you can develop and get into it and so on. The wharf budget each year can be greatly dictated by a winter storm. If ice comes into the northeast coast and into the harbours, if you get the right wind, and if a half-dozen of Mr. Simms' wharves are demolished in active fishing areas, it could rearrange priorities entirely. I don't mean areas where one or two use a wharf and they have another one three miles up the road, but we probably have too much of that also. We might want to look at working with the fishermen themselves to see where we can consolidate and provide better facilities, but that's their call.

You can set a plan as to how much you're going to spend on wharves, how much you're going to spend on breakwaters, and how much you will do in divestiture, and we have that, to a point. But the actual work itself can be dictated, as I say, simply by a shift in fishing. People I know in one community, where we built a wharf that cost about $3 million some years ago—before my day—within five years had gone to bigger boats. They could no longer land where they were landing. The wharf was abandoned, and they all moved further up where we had to go spend more money. That's the problem we run into.

Does somebody want to get into the set-up?

Would you, Cal?

[Cal Hegge]

Yes.

Just in terms of a general question on investment planning, our capital budget, as you saw in the slide, is close to $300 million. We have a number of centres of expertise in the department that we work with in terms of allocating the major capital. The largest one, of course, would be the fleet and the Canadian Coast Guard. Small craft harbours, the real property program, and information management information technology, which is a smaller one, are others.

We have a fairly rigorous secretariat set up in finance and administration that works with the various centres of expertise. They are in constant contact with our regions, so the capital investment is obviously cognizant of the needs in the region. The priority-setting we have in the department is subject to peer review. In other words, all the centres of expertise get together, and they play a very important and effective role in challenging each other's expenditure plans. We monitor this through the finance committee and through our departmental management committee.

As a last comment, I would mention that in terms of the management accountability framework and the assessment the department just received, we actually got pretty good marks for our process with respect to investment planning.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Mr. Hegge.

Mr. Minister, maybe this is not for all the wharves in Mr. Simms' riding, but there are a few that were washed away that have enough material stacked up to replace them anyway.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I'm happy to report to you, Mr. Chair, that I--

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Mr. Simms, you have your five minutes.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

I'm happy to report that I was not on them at the time—

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

—and I left standing.

I hope you have a pen because I have a few quick questions. I'm just going to run through the questions and I'll let you answer them.

DFO estimated last September that the European Union had already overrun its 2007 Greenland halibut or turbot quota by 10%, and the EU fleet just kept on fishing after that. What is the assessment of the EU's NAFO Greenland halibut quotas in 2007? What did DFO estimate the EU's catches were as against those quotas?

The proposed new NAFO convention contains provisions for reviewing objections, which you talked about, so what provisions does it contain to review and redress the violations of accepted quotas? You may want to talk about the reforms that were made.

Also, your government has now committed to bringing all significant international treaties to the House. So the question is not if, but when, the new NAFO reforms will be brought to the House.

Also, how will your commitment to extend the 200-mile limit affect issues such as the turbot quota?

Finally, changing gears just a little bit, I received correspondence regarding Bill C-32, and it says this:

We also recommend that the government send Bill C-32 to the Parliamentary Standing Committee prior to second reading to allow for adequate collaborative consultation and accommodation of Aboriginal and Treaty rights. We ask for your support in this regard.

Unfortunately, that was not done. It continues:

Given the important implications to First Nations of these proposed amendments to the Fisheries Act, failure to fully and adequately engage and consult First Nations may result in eventual legal challenges.

This correspondence was signed by Phil Fontaine, the national chief.

Obviously, that's a serious way of going about the issue. Why has the government not pursued taking the bill to committee prior to second reading?

Could you start with the issue of Greenland halibut or turbot, and also the new NAFO convention?

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Excuse me, Mr. Minister, but Mr. Simms used half of the time asking his questions, leaving you two and a half minutes to answer them all. So unless you have speed dial, you'd better move.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Actually, I think other people were giving quite....

During his answer, I think he's allowed to overrun, isn't he?

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

He can overrun by 30 seconds or a few minutes, but not by....

We'll see how the time goes. I just want to give you fair warning, that's all.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Mr. Chair, let me give the first two questions to Mr. Bevan for very quick answers.

The halibut issue is one that was causing major concern. We've done major work on that and we are making headway. Dave will give you the specifics on that, and also in relation to the objection, which I'll also refer to him.

[David Bevan]

On the 2007 quota—and we have the same quota in 2008, by the way—we estimate there was a minor overrun of a few hundred tonnes by the EU. That's an estimate. Their reports, of course, are not confirming that. We are looking at much better compliance in 2008 than we've seen in the last number of years, so compliance has been improving steadily, and 2007 was a modest overrun.

With respect to the new convention, as in the existing convention, there are provisions for contracting parties who overrun a quota to have that overrun removed from their quota the next year. Those are issues that can be considered by the fisheries commission in any given year.

I think that's it.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

When is it coming to the House?

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

It will come to the House. We've committed to bring it to the House, so we'll be bringing it there sooner rather than later.

By the way, I'm surprised we haven't had a question on overfishing on the nose and the tail and the Flemish Cap.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Wouldn't extending the 200-mile limit take care of that?

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

We always talk about the fish, flatfish, cod, etc. To a large degree, the Greenland halibut, the turbot, is the concern now. That has been minimized, really. We are working on that, so I hope it will be better.

The treaties we'll bring to the House as soon as possible. On the commitment to extend the 200-mile limit, I'm not sure how you can do it.

The commitment we made was to end foreign overfishing and if necessary to take custodial management of the nose and tail and the Flemish Cap. Every definition I have from Mr. Matthews, Minister Rideout, and Premier Williams in relation to what they perceive as custodial management, we have met. Right now, that resource is being managed. It is not being overfished at all. There has not been one violation this year so far. There was one last year.

On the correspondence from Phil Fontaine, I would suggest that you also have a lot of correspondence—at least that's what I'm told—from fishermen who are telling you to get on with the job, to get this proposed act through committee and get it passed.

Why didn't we send it to committee before second reading? That was because it took 140 years to develop an outline of what we consider--and most of you, including some of your members who have been heavily involved in the fishery, and former ministers have said it will be a very good act with some massaging. Massaging can easily be done at committee. In fact, the major issues raised by the people around this table before the last change were taken care of. There is always a moving target. If we send a bill to committee before second reading, you will not see the same bill any more. It will be completely decimated and changed, so it is just as well to take it and throw it out the window. We saw that with any other bills we sent to committee.

[Scott Simms, Liberal, Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor, NL]

Then it is your bill, not a fishermen's bill.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

If we're going to get an act that is as good as we can get, the only hope is to use the framework we have. It took a long time to develop. We had a lot of input. You do what you can at committee, and in your consultations you have free rein, but at least we have a framework that covers everything and doesn't open it up so that it will be torn to shreds and we will never see an act. We work with a good framework or we just say, “Forget it, boys, we're not going to get a fisheries act”. It's as simple as that, really.

[The Chair, Conservative, Fabian Manning]

Thank you, Minister.

Mr. Lévesque.

[Yvon Lévesque, Bloc, Abitibi—Baie-James—Nunavik—Eeyou, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Good morning, witnesses.

Minister, in March 2008, the committee met to study the conditions of eelgrass beds in James Bay. You know that barnacles and snow geese feed on this plant in order to survive their migration. This species will soon be endangered if we don't try to deal with this problem immediately.

If you decide to undertake a long-term study, how will it be funded? Maybe I should have started by asking you about the relative importance that the department places on scientific research into northern marine ecosystems.

[Loyola Hearn, Conservative, St. John's South—Mount Pearl, NL]

Merci beaucoup, monsieur.

We are aware of that. We're seeing too much of our environment, our habitat, being changed because of development. I won't say it's being destroyed intentionally, though. The James Bay issue—and I'll have one of our officials speak directly to it—is certainly a concern of ours. We have spent a fair amount of time looking at it and working on it. We have to work with the local people to make sure we preserve the habitat. Geese, especially, are important to them. I drove through Ontario recently, and I think there are some people there who would like to see fewer of them. They're very plentiful. But they are a resource that we can't allow to become endangered, because a lot of people depend on it.

Does somebody want to pick up the James Bay question? Claire?

[Claire Dansereau, Associate Deputy Minister, Department of Fisheries and Oceans]

Thank you, Mr. Lévesque.

We have started discussions with Environment Canada and Hydro-Québec in order to better understand the situation. We have begun the discussions that were requested by the committee and the studies in conjunction with these other two bodies are ongoing.