moved that Bill C-29, an act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise in my place to address the substance and rationale for Bill C-29. In doing so, may I express on behalf of the government and all the government supporters and as well on behalf of Atlantic Canadians, all those who have traditionally depended upon the resources of the sea for a livelihood and for a reason to be in many of our isolated and rural communities of Atlantic Canada, our thanks and appreciation to all members and to all parties in the House for the rare show of unanimous support to expedite the passage of Bill C-29, an act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act.
It is seldom in the life of a Parliament that such a rare show of unanimous support is forthcoming in the pursuit of a cause that is so worthwhile for all Canadians.
For generations fishermen have worked hard to make a living. It is a very tough existence but a good life from the resources of the ocean on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. All of that is threatened today.
We confront a very grim question. The question is will a way of life that has been sustained for 500 years now survive?
Environmental conditions have had a role to play in pushing down fish stocks. There are fewer, in fact historically low levels of young fish on the Grand Banks today. These fish are growing more slowly. They take longer to mature. More are dying because of natural causes. Indeed, we have record low levels of temperature on the east coast, 65-year record low temperatures. Therefore, we have a more natural death of fish stocks.
All of these ecological factors are happening today, but these factors are only one small part of the resource crisis that we face.
Beginning in the mid-1980s there was massive destructive overfishing of cod, flounder and other resources on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks just outside Canada's 200-mile economic zone. The fisheries in this area just outside the 200-mile limit is regulated by an organization called NAFO, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization. The catches set by NAFO are determined as a consequence of the scientific evidence that is gathered from all of the nations that participate in fisheries outside our 200-mile limit. Canadian scientists on Canadian fisheries patrol vessels, Russian scientists, Japanese scientists, European union scientists all collaborate to establish what the proper harvesting levels should be to sustain the resource. NAFO, as an organization, works collaboratively to set quotas and to start harvesting plans in a manner that is sustainable.
During the 1980s Canada fished within the quotas set by NAFO. So did the fleets from most other countries fish within the quotas established by NAFO. We did what we thought was right then in the mid-1980s. We know now that we took in fact too much fish.
I have to say here and now that even as we fished within the assigned quotas as did many others, the European union in the mid-1980s showed no such restraint. The European union as a member of NAFO would participate in establishing global quotas, would be assigned its share of the quota and then would unilaterally establish for itself its own quota and fish according to its own fishing plan.
Canada and many other nations set out to do the right thing. In retrospect it turned out we were not doing the right thing. The European union in the mid-1980s set out to do the wrong thing and regrettably it succeeded.
The heavy overfishing of cod and flounder in the mid-1980s severely depleted those resources. It was in the early 1990s that nature, because of a changed environmental condition on top of the heavy overfishing of the mid-1980s, dealt a second crushing blow. These stocks which were depleted, weakened and overfished are now in a rate of rapid decline.
How many Canadians realize that the once great 2J, 3KL cod stock, an important part of the protein, the food basket of the planet earth, a cod stock that once sustained the great North American fleet, all of the European fleet, the Spanish and Portuguese fleet, the Russian fleet, the Japanese fleet, a stock that fed a good part of the planet, the once great northern cod stock has been decimated and that the spawning biomass of that stock since 1989 has declined by 99 per cent. A scant four or five years later only 1 per cent of the spawning biomass that existed five years ago remains today. This stock is in crisis. This resource that belongs to the planet earth is on its last legs today.
Man has been slow to realize, but we had better realize soon, that we cannot command nature. We can only obey nature. If we do not understand that in the context of fish stocks, we face a terrible consequence for our ignorance. We face the commercial if not the biological extinction of once massive fish stocks.
This could happen to northern cod. It could happen to southern Grand Banks cod, 3NO cod, and it could happen to four endangered species of flounder as well on the Grand Banks.
Canada has stopped fishing all of these endangered stocks, every one of them. Canada has participated with NAFO in putting moratoriums in place, the most recent in February in Brussels, to protect 3NO cod. Prior to that, four moratoriums were put in place to protect flounder. A moratorium was put in place to protect the great northern cod stock that I have just described as having been devastated. There is a moratorium in place to protect American plaice in area 3M on the Flemish Cap.
Within Canada we have not only participated in moratoriums to protect straddling stocks, but today as the minister of fisheries I preside over 14 moratoriums within Canadian waters. We have shut down virtually the entire cod fishery, the entire groundfishery of all of Atlantic Canada. We have done all that we can in the name of conservation. We have even denied after 500 years of settlement and existence the right of those who live in the Atlantic region to take simple biblical level technology, a simple hook and line and fish food for a living.
We can do no more than we have done literally in the name of conservation. We submit that those who come from distant water nations to fish off our shores can do no less than what we have imposed upon ourselves.
We proposed a bill to give Canada the capacity, authority and ability not to extend our jurisdiction out beyond 200 miles, not to make a territorial grab, not to expand our economic zone and not to pull unto ourselves more territory or water. That is not Canada's nature. It is not Canada's way. It is not part of our history. It is not part of our culture. We have never been an expansionist power or some kind of imperialistic power.
We propose a measure today to give us the ability to enforce the conservation measures necessary to protect endangered species not just for ourselves but for the world.
Overfishing has occurred on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, overfishing on occasion by Canadian fleets. Let us have the courage, the integrity and the honesty to admit that and stop that overfishing. We have demonstrated in the last months that where a Canadian vessel breaks the rules Canada shall reach out the long arm of its enforcement power and impose proper conservation measures. A month ago we went out 300 miles to arrest the Stephen B , a Canadian tuna boat fishing against ICCAT rules, to protect bluefin tuna, a highly migratory species. We went out 228 miles to arrest the Kristina Logos , a Canadian registered vessel catching 3NO cod. We are not asking the world to accept a standard that we do not impose upon ourselves first.
The vessels overfishing on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks can be divided into two rough categories, those that belong to the multilateral organization that I described earlier, NAFO, that fish within NAFO quotas and according to NAFO rules within a NAFO management plan, and those that do not.
A moment go I said that European vessels in the mid-1980s did not abide by NAFO's rules even when a member of NAFO. Even today some European vessels do not comply fully with the rules but by and large the quotas and the management plan set by NAFO are complied with by European union vessels.
While we occasionally have differences, we have the means as a member of NAFO to settle those differences by agreement and within an existing management structure.
May I say there is nothing so unholy, nothing so repulsive, nothing more predatory than the spectacle of tying up Canadian fishermen, tying up Canadian boats, closing down Canadian fish plants, wiping out the very reason for existence of Canadian coastal communities in the name of conservation, and even as that sacrifice is made to restore this resource for future generations, watching a handful of what we call flag of convenience pirate vessels targeting those same endangered species that we Canadians have set aside to be saved to rebuild this fragile resource. I say to the pirates their day has come and we are going to stop that kind of predatory action. We are going to stop that kind of exploitation.
Why? Because we have some desire to be in conflict on the high seas? Not at all. It is contrary to our nature. Because we have some macho desire to flex our muscles on the high seas? Not at all. It is contrary to our nature, to our history.
We hope that we as a House of Commons who have come together to produce this legislation, unanimously proposed, unanimously supported, unanimously implemented, will not have to move against a single vessel. We hope that those who make exploitation, risk capital, their gain, will understand that their best course of action is to pull up gear and leave.
We do not want to confront a single vessel on the high seas. We do not want to arrest a single vessel on the high seas. We do not want to interfere with a single crew, wherever it comes from, whatever flag of convenience it flies on the high seas. But we will confront and we will arrest and we will seize and we will prosecute each and every one if they do not pull up their nets and leave the zone.
Last month Canada arrested a Canadian registered vessel, the Kristina Logos , 228 miles out. The vessel was flying the Panamanian flag, with a crew from Portugal. We towed it into port in St. John's.
Do you know what we found? We found over 100 tons of product aboard that freezer vessel. Do you know what else we found? We found nets with something close to legal mesh size. Of course a legal mesh size would allow a small juvenile or baby fish to escape because it could swim through the mesh. Yet aboard that boat were 100 tons of juvenile cod, juvenile flounder, and juvenile redfish. I was down in the hold of that boat. I want to tell my colleagues that I saw not a single fish of the 100 tons in that hold that was bigger than the palm of my hand. I want you to stop and think about that. Not a single fish aboard that vessel was longer than the palm of my hand.
Those who come from Atlantic Canada know when you are catching those kinds of fish you are slaughtering the species. It is a crime against humanity. It is a crime against an important resource that belongs not to a single nation but to the planet. That is what was found in the hold of that vessel.
You ask yourself, how can they catch such a small fish? It looks more like it belongs in the aquarium at home, not in the hold of a commercial fishing vessel. How is it done? Then fisheries officers uncover what is called a liner. Inside the legal sized fishing gear is put a liner so that everything that swims into that net is being held inside it. Nothing can escape, not juvenile fish, not any species. Everything goes into the hold of the boat.
Who are these people? The people who own these vessels see them as an opportunity to make profit. These are people who do not have the mentality of fishermen. Fishermen believe you must harvest the sea as a farmer does his land. A farmer knows you must sustain the fields. You must leave them to lie fallow on occasion. You must replant a different product from time to time. You must sustain the power of the fields to produce crops.
The ocean is no different. It cannot be exploited, it must be harvested. You must catch fish in such a way as to leave the young, let them grow older, let them reproduce. You move your effort from fragile stocks on to healthier stocks.
Not these vessels, not these pirates, not these flags of convenience or stateless vessels. No, they do not have the mind of a farmer or a fisherman, they have the mind of a miner. Take the resource. That is understandable in mining, it is not renewable, it is not sustainable. You take the resource, mine it, clean it out and then move on.
That is not acceptable to Canada. That is why Canada as represented by all of its political parties today will act in record time to pass this bill.
Our legislation says: "The bill will enable Canada to take the urgent action necessary to prevent further destruction of straddling stocks and to permit their rebuilding while continuing to seek effective international solutions".
Lest anyone be in doubt, let me affirm once again three fundamental commitments by the Government of Canada. First, Canada is committed to the rule of international law. Second, Canada's goal remains effective international controls over high seas fishing. Third, the Government of Canada will use the powers under this legislation only where other means to protect threatened straddling stocks have failed.
Our commitment to the third principle is no less strong than our commitment to the first two; that is, the rule of law and our desire to seek effective international controls to deal with the problems of high seas fishing.
That is why even as we propose a measure that allows us to go beyond 200 miles and to use the force required to ensure that NAFO conservation rules and other conservation measures are respected, we continue to work at the UN Conference on High Seas Fishing which will undertake its third session in August in New York to seek a permanent solution to the problem of overfishing.
The measures we take today under Bill C-29 are an interim measure, a temporary measure. They are necessary now because if we do not act those fish stocks will disappear, perhaps forever.
The world needs, and Canada needs, not a temporary solution taken by one nation but a permanent solution taken by all nations under the auspices of the UN. That is why Canada has worked hard at the UN both last summer and again this spring and we will do so again in August to get a new convention on high seas fishing.
I say to those people in Atlantic Canada who ask if it is too late, no, it is not too late. We can build this resource. It takes the commitment not of a single province, not of a single region, not of a particular group of people, but the commitment of a nation. I say to those people in Atlantic Canada who believe that their country has abandoned them in this crisis and that Canadians elsewhere in Ontario or Quebec or British Columbia, Saskatchewan or Manitoba do not know or do not care about this crisis, it is not true.
This is a particularly proud day for me, not as Minister of Fisheries and Oceans but as a member of Parliament from Newfoundland. I have been here for 14 years. I stand here today in an emergency debate and look across and see colleagues from every party and from every part of Canada who give the confidence that this measure is supported. The country does care and does have the will to solve this problem.
I would like to acknowledge the work over many years to raise the consciousness of the nation to this crisis of all the Atlantic premiers. Members would understand if I were particularly to acknowledge the work of Premier Wells of Newfoundland. He went across this country to raise the consciousness of the nation about this problem.
Members would understand as well if I said that it takes a Prime Minister with vision, it takes a Prime Minister with courage and it takes a Prime Minister with great integrity to have said during the heat of an election campaign that Canada will act and to have delivered during the calm of the first serious
and sober days of government the ability to act. I thank our Prime Minister.
