Fisheries Committee on Oct. 20th, 2009

[Tom Hedderson]

When you're around that table, what can you give up? That's the big question. We're politicians. It's the art of compromise, and the Europeans are very good at it. So you have to compromise, because there are only two things you have. One is that you're going to make decisions with regard to the conservation of your stocks by saving sustainability, and the other is that you're going to try to hold on to the quotas you have. So if you want conservation and you're around a table, you're probably going to have to say, “In order for me to get this, I'm going to have to give up some quota,” or vice versa. So there are only two things, and where we have almost total control of the stocks, why should we be compromising? That's the big question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Minister.

Monsieur Blais.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good afternoon. With regard to your appearance today, you know that I have no votes to win or lose. Be that as it may, it is important for you to tell us how the situation has changed between September 2007 and October 2009.

As I understand it, to get to the amendments tabled in the House of Commons last June, your government, or you specifically—I do not know if it was you or someone else—had to be following the negotiations very closely. I believe that, to a certain extent, you participated quite actively in moving the situation forward. When did you feel that it was beginning to go against you?

The meeting that Mr. Applebaum and others had with the Prime Minister last September was a defining moment. I imagine that you were following what was happening very closely before that, prior to that meeting.

I would like to understand more about the way things unfolded, how you were involved and what alarm bells you rang to warn of the situation we see today, your objection, pure and simple, to the amendments before us.

[Tom Hedderson]

The correspondence going back and forth between our government and this government was stacked quite high. Obviously, anyone can single out any one letter and try to spin it. But since February 7, 2006, when Premier Williams wrote to Prime Minister Harper about custodial management, we have stated our position. I just go down to September 2006, February 7, 2006, down through to 2009. As well, before we go to NAFO, as a minister, I always write to the current fisheries and oceans minister and clearly articulate our position.

You have to try to separate two things: one, you're talking about conventions; and, two, you're talking about custodial management. We have never wavered one iota in asking this government to fulfill its commitment to us as a province that they pursue custodial management. That continues right until this present day.

With regard to the conventions, you said we had participated quite actively. From my department, I have two officials go to the NAFO meetings in an advisory role. Before they go, whatever's on the agenda, I certainly write to the minister and indicate our position on those issues. So as clearly as we can make the case, we have continued to push the federal government, the current government, towards custodial management. We haven't wavered on that, not one iota.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

Okay, but when?

[Tom Hedderson]

There are two other commissioners who represent our jurisdiction. Maybe that's the confusion, because they represent the industry, and they, of course, are not tied into government. Certainly, we would obviously like to influence them and we would hope they would be standing up for custodial management as well. But of these commissioners, one represents the FFAW union and I guess the other gentleman represents the industry. We have no way of answering to them, just as they have no way of answering to us. So what they do and what they say are not necessarily the position of our province.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

If I am not mistaken, two definitions of satisfactory progress were circulating in Newfoundland when the negotiations were going on. One was being put around by people in the industry and the other, your department's official version, in fact, was warning the federal government about the negotiations. The two version are not the same. Do I understand correctly?

[Tom Hedderson]

What you have to understand is that my officials are in an advisory capacity. They do not sit at the table. The delegation meets and they discuss their positions, and so on, but then the Canadian delegation goes forward. They are the ones, then, who are at the table, making whatever decisions need to be made in light of that particular table.

My people are just, again, in an advisory role. We don't participate in the actual negotiations.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

In Mr. Williams' letter to Mr. Harper, he mentions that, despite a previous request from your department to include changes and new information...

When exactly was that previous request made?

[Tom Hedderson]

I don't know which one you're referring to. I don't have it here.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

It is the letter to the Prime Minister signed by Mr. Danny Williams. He mentions it in the final paragraphs.

[Tom Hedderson]

Would that be the latest letter?

I just want to be clear, because I've referenced one from back in 2006.

[Raynald Blais, Bloc, Gaspésie—Îles-de-la-Madeleine, QC]

It is dated in 2009. It is still hot off the press, you might say.

When was the previous request?

[Tom Hedderson]

Regarding the previous request, again, I don't know what the reference is, but we have requested, right back to 2006, that custodial management be the order of the day.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Mr. Stoffer.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. And, Minister, thank you for coming here today.

One of the confusing things for me is that a few years ago, Mr. Scott Simms, who was the then Liberal critic for fisheries and oceans, and I met with Mr. Tom Rideout. Mr. Rideout was affectionately known as “the minister for everything” at that time in Newfoundland and Labrador. We had just finished meeting with the four gentlemen you talked about, here in Ottawa and in Newfoundland, and they were very concerned about NAFO and what it meant.

Thus we took it so seriously, and we wanted to do it in a non-partisan way and go and meet Mr. Rideout, who was speaking on behalf of the government. He basically said he had no concerns about the amendments. He seemed to think everything was fine and that Mr. McCurdy, who was the president of the FFAW, representing thousands of inshore plant workers and fishermen, seemed to think this amendment or this particular recent NAFO discussion was okay. It put me in a bind, because I was personally against the amendments, but if the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador at that time seemed to be okay with it, if the people most affected by it seemed to think it was okay, I didn't have much of a leg to stand on.

First of all, when did this sort of...not necessarily change of opinion, but reassessment of the situation take place within Premier Williams' government?

Secondly, when Earle McCurdy, whose name I mentioned earlier, appeared before our committee, he seemed supportive of the amendments. So my simple question is, do you agree with Mr. McCurdy's assessment of the NAFO amendments?

The last one, which I'm concerned about as well, is the 3M cod. Why would Canada allow a higher outtake of that cod species than science would allow?

When you listen to VOCM or to other people in Newfoundland and Labrador, a lot of them—Senator George Baker is prominent on this—say that for years, fish stocks off the coast of Newfoundland and Labrador were used as a sort of bartering chip for other aspects of the Canadian economy. And we know that Canada-EU talks are ongoing.

I don't necessarily need you to respond to that particular assessment, or I guess you could call it more a conspiracy theory than anything else. But on the other two, could you possibly respond to when the government amended its opinion on the agreement, and also on Mr. McCurdy's position?

Lastly—and you can take this one home with you, because it has nothing to do with what we're talking about—there is the issue of light stations in Newfoundland and Labrador. The government's position is that it is reviewing the possible de-staffing of light stations. We'd sure like to know, at a later time, the province's position, your view on that possibility if indeed it were to happen.

Thank you so much, and thank you for appearing today.

[Tom Hedderson]

Thank you, Peter.

First, I obviously can't speak for Minister Rideout. I'd like to be able to say that I knew where he was coming from. I've been the minister for less than a year now, and from my briefing when I came in, it was clear to me that we were not satisfied with the conventions. This was last Hallowe'en, as a matter of fact—a scary proposition, I know. Basically, when I did my briefings I went to NAFO and I found nothing there that indicated to me that we were happy with the conventions.

With regard to Earle McCurdy, to respond to a previous MP, obviously if he's comfortable with the conventions...I don't agree with him, nor does the province. What you have to understand is that these conventions were brought back and we reviewed them. As a matter of fact, in a letter I wrote to Minister Shea I explored the possibility.... I could not believe—it was incredible—that a minister of the crown could allow our sovereignty to be breached simply on his or her say. I asked whether he would even consider going to a cabinet level. The response I got was no, it would be things as usual.

That again raised big concerns. It was shortly after this that we went back—some of these gentlemen I referred to, these former executives, and I—to the premier and said we wanted to do a review. When we looked back on it, we came to the conclusion that regardless of whether it was cabinet or a minister, if there's any sense of a risk that NAFO will get inside the 200-mile limit and compromise our sovereignty, we're not there. That's the long and short of it.

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

Thank you very much.

[Tom Hedderson]

With regard to the 3M cod—as I pointed out, we weren't around the table—my officials got back to me and said, “You won't believe what happened today”; our nation had voted with the EU, against Norway and against the United States, to increase the quota from a recovering stock. The reason was that something had happened around that table, I suspect, because when the Europeans came in, with regard to the halibut, it's my understanding that they wanted it to be reduced; Canada wanted it to be rolled over.

I guess it was a case of “you scratch my back and I'll scratch yours”. That's my conjecture, because, again, I wasn't around the table, but I know that around that table you don't get anything unless you give something up. So Canada had to have made some sort of deal, and it will be up to those who were around the table to make good on it.

[The Chair, Conservative, Rodney Weston]

Thank you, Mr. Minister.

Mr. Weston.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Minister, I want to join with my colleagues in welcoming you here and thanking you for being here. You've been a minister for less than a year; I've been an MP for only a year, and I know I have lots to learn.

I want to say that what I come here with is some assumptions: certainly that a man's word is his bond; that in politics, as in anything else, when you take a public stance on something, it means a lot; and that in the world of international treaties, where Canada is required to work with our international partners to preserve our fisheries because we can't do it alone, we have to depend on the provinces and the federal government working coherently and cooperating if these treaties are to be negotiated to make sense. Those are assumptions that I come with.

I want to recite to you a chronology of events that has been revealed to me, based on my research, going back to 2005, when there was a conference in St. John's, well before you were minister. At that conference it was held that NAFO reform was a key plank in an effort to modernize Canadian fisheries. The governments of the day were the Williams government provincially and the Martin government federally.

Then we move to 2006 and 2007. Our party forms the government, and Minister Hearn pushes to modernize NAFO “to give it teeth”. The negotiation team, like every other group that represents Canada at NAFO, consists of DFO bureaucrats and scientists, industry representatives, as well as representatives from the Province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Isn't that right?

[Tom Hedderson]

We've acknowledged that.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

Then we have Minister Rideout saying that he goes along with the proposed amendment. Newfoundland is actively involved in negotiations to amend the convention. Throughout, there have been exchanges of information. Newfoundland is at the table. The most contentious issue is the amendment to article VI that would allow NAFO management inside the Canadian EEZ. Canada asks for it and then votes in favour of such management. I think we agree on that.

Then in July of this year you wrote to Minister Shea saying that the protections offered by Canada's having to ask for NAFO measures inside our EEZ and having to vote for them was an acceptable package. These are your own words; I'm quoting you back what you said:

The fact that Canada would have to support a NAFO measure and then request its application in the [EEZ] seems to provide the necessary safeguard against an unintended consequence of the amended convention.

This along with securing the Canadian shares of NAFO-managed stocks makes an acceptable package.

You wrote that on July 6, 2009. I can only presume that you were looking, as you said, at the compromises required to achieve our objectives. You said it, and Canada, based on what you said, told our international partners that we're prepared to go along with this.

So tell me, what happened? What was the critical event in your life or your government's assessment that led to this diametrically opposed position?

[Tom Hedderson]

I think it's in your mind, because again I say, as I responded to a question from the other side of the table, that I did write that letter, obviously, and I'm willing to stand behind it. But you're looking at...to use the word “seems”, it is not what it seems to be. Basically, I made a statement that I couldn't believe that a country would allow any intrusion on their sovereignty, and to have it done by a minister without any recourse to cabinet or otherwise is just unacceptable.

From that point in time, again as we said, we did a re-analysis of where we were, and I tell you, it's not palatable for us to support the conventions. That's as simple and straightforward as we can possibly make it.

[John Weston, Conservative, West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, BC]

You realize how, to use the word again, it “compromises” the ability of Canada, of our government, to complete any negotiation in which a province is so primarily involved, if the province is switching its position—