Fisheries Committee on Dec. 7th, 2023

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

The motion we're dealing with right now is the amendment to the original motion. We have to discuss the amendment first and decide on that. Then we can go back to discussion on the main motion.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'm sorry, but I'm a little confused here. This is not the first time, but....

Are you saying we don't have an amendment, but we have a separate motion? This is not an amendment.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

No, that's the motion. Mr. Kelloway amended it.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

We're not discussing your motion, then. We're discussing the amendment.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

We're discussing the amendment to the motion.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Is that to Ms. Barron's motion or to this motion?

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

No, it's to that motion. For the time being, Ms. Barron's motion is totally separate and may remain that way.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Okay. Have we sent around the amendment to this motion too?

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

No. It's just been made.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Oh. Okay. I'm feeling a bit like Abbott and Costello.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Mr. Hardie introduced the motion. Mr. Kelloway introduced an amendment to the motion. We are discussing the amendment to the motion made by Mr. Kelloway.

Ms. Barron, I see your hand up.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Thank you, Chair.

On the amendment, I'm going to just say, with this caveat, that I have amendments, because I have concerns over the content of the motion itself. However, I will speak only to the amendment right now, in the hope that I'll be able to speak to the motion when we loop back around to it.

With respect to the three points that Mr. Kelloway just brought forward, the first one, “west coast”, seems like an appropriate addition.

I am 100% against taking out “eliminate” and trading that for “minimize”. Otherwise, I'm happy with that, but I will say I have some concerns that I want to speak to over the motion in general. As for the specific amendments, I do not agree with taking out “eliminate”.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

If you wish to make a subamendment to that amendment, that is what you would need to do to maintain the word “eliminate” and not use the word “minimize”.

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

Mr. Chair, if I can clarify, I think it might be easier for me to just vote down the entire amendment. Then I can actually vote on the motion as is, if that's an option that I can take.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

You can vote any way you wish.

Mr. Small.

[Clifford Small, Conservative, Coast of Bays—Central—Notre Dame, NL]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I know that this motion states that it's about aquaculture, but is it salmon farming? There are different aspects and categories of aquaculture, because we're going to have also—

[Lisa Marie Barron, NDP, Nanaimo—Ladysmith, BC]

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I apologize to my colleague Mr. Small. That wasn't intended to be a personal attack in any way. I'm just trying to get clarification, so that we're all on the same page.

Are we speaking only to the amendments that were put forward to this motion? It sounds like we've gone down the rabbit hole of debating the content of the original motion that was brought forward, which is a debate that I one hundred per cent want to participate in but have not, because we are amending the three points that have been brought forward by Mr. Kelloway on the content of the motion. The “minimize” to “eliminate”, the “west coast” and then the request to the government are the three points I heard and that I spoke to.

I'm happy to hear from Mr. Small, of course, but I want to make sure we're all debating the same thing right now.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

I've had a suggestion from the clerk that it may be easiest to deal with if you were to break down your amendment into separate pieces so that we can deal with the west coast phrase and then move on to the amendments to the next paragraph, if you're willing to do that.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Do you want me to verbally do that again, or do you want it in written format?

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

The amendment we are discussing, then, is to insert the words “on the west coast” after “Canadian Coast Guard” and then to remove the word “eliminate” and insert the word “minimize”.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Cape Breton—Canso, NS]

Okay. I'll take it step by step in terms of the vote.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

We'll deal with that sentence and move on from there.

Mr. Hardie.

[Ken Hardie, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Actually, I think we should be a bit more granular, deal with “on the west coast” and then deal separately with “minimize” versus “eliminate”.

[The Vice-Chair, Conservative, Mel Arnold]

Granular it is.

I see you, Mr. Bragdon, online with your hand up.

[Richard Bragdon, Conservative, Tobique—Mactaquac, NB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Yes, I just want to speak in regard to “on the west coast”. I think this is a very important distinction that needs to be recognized by this committee in any study that we're going forward with. It deals with the matter of jurisdiction. It's very clear that in Atlantic Canada, much more Fisheries and Oceans...and much more that pertains to net pens and open-net pens would fall under areas of provincial jurisdiction and that of provincial governments.

That distinction is critical. It's vital to the east coast region, and anything we're doing at the federal level as it pertains to this matter needs to be specified. I think it is important to make sure that this distinction is laid out clearly in anything we do with any such study. Thank you.