Madam Speaker, as the Minister of Fisheries mentioned, the Official Opposition does support the bill. However, we would like to add a few words and say ourselves that we do support the minister's legislation.
This bill will allow the Governor in Council-for me in French it means the cabinet-to make regulations concerning straddling stocks, the classes of foreign fishing vessels to which the prohibition will apply, and the conservation and management measures with which these vessels must comply.
These measures have also been formulated by Canada in the context of NAFO, and I think they were supported by the majority. Indeed, they did receive the support of a majority of members. I guess you cannot go against common sense, and I think that Canada is well-advised to put its Coast Guard and its national defence system, if necessary, at NAFO's disposal for surveillance and monitoring purposes over that organization's fishing area.
As I said, the Bloc Quebecois supports this government initiative. As I also mentioned yesterday at a press conference, after the Minister of Fisheries made his speech, I believe this is a good compromise between diplomacy and enforcement or other monitoring measures. This legislation will empower the minister to use force but, at the same time -as we will see later on in Committee of the Whole-, we will ask the minister and the cabinet to make sure that this retaliatory tool will be used with discretion. To that end, the Attorney General will have to give his consent and authorize the arrest of fishing vessels.
As I said, the Bloc Quebecois believes that international agreements negotiated in the context of NAFO must be respected. Canada will now be able to take action and arrest those fishing vessels flying a flag of convenience, which are commonly called stateless vessels. According to the law of the sea-Madam Speaker, I always have a hard time with that law-a vessel which does not fly a flag is a pirate vessel. Canada will be able to arrest these vessels, even outside its territorial waters, but inside the waters which are part of NAFO's regulatory area.
In the bill under consideration, we have the improved version of the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act which was amended in the House by Bill C-8. The Bloc Quebecois, at the time this bill, which is now a law, was passed, unless the other Chamber or the other place, as one should say, has not yet disposed of it, said it was concerned about the expressions regarding measures that might be taken "to disable -a vessel" and the use of "the force that is necessary." Very soon, in Committee of the Whole, I will ask whether the Cabinet is now prepared to tell us the definition of these words, even if the Minister assures us in advance that this Act will be applied with great discrimination.
I would also like to add that Bill C-29 is also a means for the Bloc Quebecois to show its desire to be a positive element in Canada. We in the Bloc Quebecois know the points on which we disagree with Canadians, but our position here will let Canadians know the points on which we can agree. And this the Minister also pointed out a little while ago.
In this regard, I was given an opportunity to speak a little about sovereignty. Even the journalists asked me the question: What political gain is there for the Bloc Quebecois in these measures? There is no political gain. It is out of maturity, as people, that we say yes to measures that must be taken at the international level to protect the world heritage. And in the context of sovereignty, since I had begun to speak of it, the Bloc Quebecois has made some suggestions. And when Quebec becomes sovereign, we too will be a member state able to take part in NAFO. Consequently, we would like to reassure the Minister of Fisheries that a sovereign Quebec will also comply with NAFO's management rules. It is in this sense that the Bloc Quebecois is expressing its support today in the House of Commons.
As I or the Minister said, it is rare for all the parties to agree so quickly on a bill. The Minister said yesterday that it was a way for all Canadians to speak in a single voice, but as I said a moment ago, even if Quebec were sovereign, Quebec and Canada would also have spoken in a single voice in the issue at hand.
Why did the Bloc Quebecois accede so quickly to the Minister's request? We did so because we are also aware of the fact that Canada has exhausted all of the diplomatic avenues at its disposal. As the Minister said, I worked in the fisheries sector for a number of years, and I know that action was taken. Many successive deputy ministers took action. There were even ambassadors who are now sitting in this House who were involved in these activities. We therefore saw what was coming.
We are pleased once again to see that the government has managed to achieve an honourable compromise in this matter. I will try to go faster because, in any event, we have made our agreement known. I will just try to go over the points in order to be very sure of the rationale behind them.
Here is another important point that I would like to raise. We realize that, while increasing the size of the area to be monitored beyond the 200-mile limit, we will still cover an area slightly smaller than the area managed by NAFO. This may require increasing marine or air surveillance. When we increase this kind of thing, it may mean increased costs as well. As these decisions are made, I would expect the minister to suggest to Cabinet that they use the tools they have, including National Defence and the Coast Guard, and at the same time try to minimize costs by using these resources efficiently. We must not forget that foreign overfishing is only one of the reasons why fish stocks have gone down. The minister also mentioned climatic conditions as a contributing factor.
We must make sure that we have enough money left to initiate what I would call an industrial diversification strategy. The minister said that we must rebuild fish stocks, and I agree, but in fact, we are going to give nature a chance to do the job.
A while ago, I made a few suggestions to the minister, and I think there are still some areas where the Bloc Quebecois and the Liberal Party can work together. We will have to consider this new approach to fisheries. Using the best selective fishing devices to catch the stocks we want to catch also means setting up land-based infrastructures to receive the catch.
If we look at the history of fisheries, first it was salt fish because there was no other way to preserve fish. With the advent of refrigeration, we started to produce frozen blocks, but now the market seems to be saturated. Considering the absence of fish from Canada, I would have expected an increase in the price of fish in the United States, our main customer, but I did not notice any increase in prices, which means there have been substitutions.
There are other countries that sell other kinds of fish, even cod, and they have moved into our markets. This means that when we start fishing again, we will have to be very creative and look to market niches such as fresh fish. These are things we can do now, because we have the requisite transportation infrastructures. We have airports in Newfoundland, the Gaspé, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, so that we can reach our markets very quickly.
I will leave a list of suggestions for the minister and his deputy ministers, and I think we should use these five years to make a start with these strategies because the $1.9 billion that is now on the table to support the fisheries strategy is mainly income support for the fishermen, in my opinion. On this score, we have some differences of opinion with the Liberals because when we in Quebec speak of manpower training, we would prefer that this area come under provincial jurisdiction.
If the minister wants us to agree somewhat more on this issue as well, perhaps he could transfer the fisheries envelope directly to the Quebec Department of Fisheries, as this would allow us to adapt programs to the way things are done in Quebec. Exchanges of technology and know-how could be made between Canada and Quebec. It could be amusing to have a little competition in this area. I apologize for injecting a touch of humour into the proceedings, but sometimes it makes a bitter pill somewhat easier to swallow.
One final comment about the $1.9 billion envelope. I mentioned being opened to ideas, but we do have some concerns at the present time. Perhaps I did not explain clearly a while ago the reason why we are not receptive right now to the idea of putting in place dockside reception infrastructures. Until now, vessels were specialized factory freezer-trawlers. What we need to do is set up markets at the unloading points in order to make use as quickly as possible of species classified as underutilized. They are underutilized because the volume caught is marginal. Now that cod and flounder stocks have declined, monk fish and skate tails will be very important. I wanted to re-emphasize this point to make certain that the government listens to this idea, because we need to develop strategies geared to the industrial sector concept. This is one such example.
In conclusion-
I will say in my own voice because I want all Canadians to hear me that the Bloc Quebecois will support the bill. We want to be sure that all foreign vessels that want to overfish will be stopped. It does not matter if Canada has to fight under international law because we have a good reason to make that kind of case if some countries want to fight against us.
I am not the minister but the speech I made is an encouragement and if he does not do his job in the future, I will check.
For the benefit of my francophone friends, let me repeat that the Bloc Quebecois supports this motion because it considers the foreign fishing now taking place to be outrageous. The minister mentioned it and the deputy ministers painted a picture of the situation for me this week. We are no longer talking about the haphazard catching of small fish. We are now dealing with deliberate attempts to catch small fish. When we speak of small fish the size of the minister's hand-we could have a minister with large hands, but that is not the case-this means that fish too small to reproduce are being caught. We can no longer tolerate this situation.
Speaking for the Bloc Quebecois, I support this bill and applaud the fact that it will be passed very quickly.