Evidence of meeting #81 for Fisheries and Oceans in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was may.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Sorry, I may have misspoke. They're consequential, meaning that the result of the vote applies to both.
Conservative
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
If you misspoke, you could have influenced the vote.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
Your understanding was that only if it passed, because consequential means I link the two.
Conservative
Liberal
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
All right. My sincere apologies. Whether I can put this machine in reverse, I'm not really sure, but I'll just check.
To avoid any confusion on that, I am seeking unanimous consent to back up a bit so I can clarify what I said.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Scott Simms
There's unanimous consent. Nobody's opposed. Thank you very much, folks. My apologies.
In the meantime we're seeking some clarification on amendments CPC-2 and CPC-5.
Philippe, can I get you to speak?
Legislative Clerk
My understanding is the two amendments are working together since, in CPC-2, you are defining what “eligible” means—
Legislative Clerk
—and then in CPC-5 you indicated “(a) shall list the classes of activities that are eligible”.
December 7th, 2017 / 10:05 a.m.
Legislative Clerk
Our understanding was they work together because you're using the term that's defined. In essence, since the definition was negatived, CPC-5 would follow the definition because they go together. Unless you see differently, and you don't agree with me and say that “eligible” doesn't need to be defined, but then it may leave a void. In explaining that you have a term “eligible”, we wouldn't know what that means, I suppose, but that's up to the official to explain.
Liberal
Conservative
Todd Doherty Conservative Cariboo—Prince George, BC
The concern we have—and again, we heard it in terms of CPC-2—is the term “eligible”. Using “eligible” rather than “ongoing”, as we heard mentioned earlier, with respect to the testimony.... It even goes to some of the earlier testimony, other amendments, goals and objectives. We want further clarification. We believe that, at this point, we should have clear information or dialogue content that outlines eligible activities.
We also heard “ongoing”. What does ongoing mean? We heard testimony that one year.... As I mentioned earlier, they may not have fished the previous year, correct? We are trying to change the word to be more representative of the intent of this bill in terms of what is eligible and what isn't eligible. That is the intent of that.
Changing the word in CPC-2 from “ongoing” to “eligible”.... You're right, it could be seen as duplication. Moreover, we're trying to put into this some clear delineation as to what is eligible, because there was confusion even with the testimony that we had from witnesses.
Liberal
Ken Hardie Liberal Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC
Perhaps this is something that staff can help us out with. I had the same concerns. A year doesn't necessarily capture what may have been going on in a two- or three-year cycle.
I've been led to believe that the term “ongoing” will actually cover things that have been permitted, even if they have only occurred cyclically. But if they have been permitted in the past, then the term “ongoing” would cover them.
Could one of the officials who's in the best position to speak to this clarify that?
Director General, Oceans Management, Department of Fisheries and Oceans
Certainly, Mr. Chairman.
If you recall when I was here with Mr. Stringer and Mr. Morel, this issue did come up in terms of the question. I pointed out the way we go about recommending marine protected areas and the application of the Oceans Act.
All activities are prohibited until they are determined to be compatible with the conservation objectives of the marine protected area. We start with the concept that nothing is permitted until it's determined to be compatible. That's the approach we take when we establish marine protected areas. We don't create a list of eligible activities. We determine it based on an activity-by-activity basis for the particular area that's being proposed.
The legislation as it relates to “ongoing” has three definitions. I think I lost my page 2 to the clerk when I was doing the French explanation. Essentially, it is either activities that have occurred in the past year and require a permit, activities that have occurred in the past year that do not require a permit, or activities that may not have occurred in the past year but that have an authorization already.
An example that was raised was related to fishing. In some cases, you have fisheries that are not necessarily occurring every year, but they may occur on a cyclical basis. In that case, the management plan already articulates when the fishery will occur, and the licence itself is the instrument authorizing the activity. So criteria (c) would apply, where the activity may not have occurred in the past year, but it is something that has already been authorized by the minister through the licence under the Fisheries Act.
