Fisheries Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2007

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Just the status is helpful. And on that point, do you contemplate that the new Fisheries Act, which has been tabled, will allow the minister now to have the statutory authority to enter into these agreements without being concerned that it could be tested in the court, with the Larocque decision applied as a precedent? Does the new Fisheries Act allow the minister to enter into scientific arrangements on the basis of providing fish for cash for science?

[Michaela Huard]

In the previous Bill C-45, there was a provision that would have allowed the minister to use fish as part of these fisheries management agreements, but in the most recent bill that was tabled, Bill C-32, that part has been removed. The minister may still enter into agreements, but the use of fish has been taken out.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Interesting.

Mr. Bevan.

[David Bevan]

If I may add, though, the minister may enter into agreements with groups of fishermen, for example, legally constituted bodies that would represent a majority of the fishermen. If there's somebody who doesn't want to pay and 90% of the people do, then there would be the capacity under the new act in order to extract the cash from the fishermen, with their concurrence generally, but those who were not willing to pay would still have to pay. Therefore, we could eliminate the free rider provision. While there's no use of fish in that, there is obviously a way around the problem that caused us to go there in the first place, and that is now being disallowed under the Larocque decision.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Thank you, Mr. Byrne.

With the committee's indulgence, I have a couple of questions, and that will conclude the questioning for today.

Mr. Da Pont, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans announced a while ago $12 million, I believe it was, for refurbishment of three coast guard vessels in the Quebec City area, in order to get them up to speed for the 400th anniversary of Quebec, if I'm not mistaken. Am I correct on those figures? If the minister did announce that, would that not be in the estimates of coast guard or DFO, or did that come from another department?

[Commr George Da Pont]

I don't know the exact figure. I think it's in that ballpark, but it was not for vessels; it was for refurbishment of the coast guard base, and it would have come out of the major capital budget in real property. So it would have been dealt with from internal resources. It's actually a project that's been on the books for quite some time.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Thank you.

As you know, this committee moved a motion to remove the marine service fees north of 60. The previous testimony you gave, sir, was that you were studying it. You had a group of stakeholders and you were studying that aspect. I guess a lot of people in the north have been waiting very patiently for the answer to that. So quite simply, when can we see those marine service fees removed for the people north of 60 in this country?

[Commr George Da Pont]

We've been working very closely with representatives of the shipping industry, including Arctic representatives, on looking at the options for just those issues. It's been making very good progress, and I am hoping that we'll come to a mutually satisfactory solution. We are in the process of working together and so it'll take a little while yet.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Thank you.

My last question is this. You said half a million dollars, and that was for staffing, I believe, for the transfer of the two vessels to Newfoundland from Nova Scotia. Is that half a million dollars just the estimate for the staff concerns?

[Commr George Da Pont]

The half-million-dollar estimate is to cover what we anticipate to be additional travel costs over and above what they currently are for having staff crew change in the north. It's generated by the fact that we've taken a five-year period of transition for crew, so we do not disrupt them or their families.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Has there been an estimated cost of what it would take to refurbish Argentia and St. John's to ready them for the two vessels? Have those costs been announced yet?

[Commr George Da Pont]

Yes. With St. John's, we anticipate no costs. All the facilities are currently in place and we don't feel we have to expand in any way to accommodate having the Terry Fox home base there.

With Argentia, we estimate the cost to be somewhere between $70,000 and $100,000, primarily for some additional power hook-ups.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

That's for the Louis, correct?

[Commr George Da Pont]

That's for the Louis St. Laurent, yes.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Okay.

Madame, on behalf of the committee, we thank you very much for your testimony today.

We thank the committee members for their questions and the answers.

We have two motions, committee, to deal with--one from Mr. Scott Simms, and one from Mr. Lévesque. So we'll take a three-minute refreshment break, as they say.

Again, thank you very much for coming today.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Gentlemen, we'll now return to committee business. We'll do the first motion that was turned in....

Mr. Byrne.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

Mr. Chair, before we get into the matter of motions, could I follow up the testimony we heard from our witnesses today? I would like to follow up a little bit on the Larocque decision. My request is a friendly request to the committee generally and does not require a motion.

We heard in the testimony that the Larocque decision and its implementation is a bit of a complicated matter of business, involving over a hundred different organizations and fisheries management agreements that have been signed. The testimony we heard is that some of them have been cancelled as a result of the Larocque decision, and some have not because there has been agreement by various parties to continue to participate.

I would like to ask the committee if it could request our researcher to provide a more fulsome backgrounder on this issue, and include the follow-up information I requested of the departmental officials during the course of their testimony as part of that, and really dig into this whole issue of the Larocque decision.

I recognize that I could request this as a private member and that I don't necessarily need the committee to request the services of the Library of Parliament, but I just think it would be very helpful for our researcher to have the authority of the committee when he makes his request, to say this is a committee request, as I think it may facilitate a broader transmission of the information required.

I don't know if you want a motion to that effect or if we can just have the unanimous consent of the committee to request that our researcher liaise with the department over the course of the Christmas-New Year break in doing that as a backgrounder?

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Mr. Kamp, do you have anything to add or say regarding Mr. Byrne's request?

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

I think it is a very complex topic and that when the analyst starts looking at the meat of it, he'll discover that you can't just put things easily into columns. But I would support the motion.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Mr. Lévesque, do you have any concerns or issues regarding Mr. Byrne's request?

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

No.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

How about the researcher? You would work on this over Christmas and New Year's?

[François Côté, Researcher, As an Individual]

Yes.

[The Acting Chair, NDP, Peter Stoffer]

Mr. Byrne, with the consent of the committee, it will be done.

[Gerry Byrne, Liberal, Humber—St. Barbe—Baie Verte, NL]

I appreciate that.

I also appreciate Mr. Kamp's statement. One of my fears was that it would just be a report made up of columns produced by the department, when in fact it does require some analysis. So I appreciate that.