Madam Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise today to speak to Bill C-98, an act respecting the oceans of Canada. I welcome the opportunity to chat for a few minutes about why I support the bill before us.
I think it is clear to everyone at this point that there is a great need to move away from what the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology called the haphazard, ad hoc, and short term measures currently employed in the management of our ocean resources. The patchwork quilt strategy is ineffective and inefficient. The national advisory board called for Canada to develop a proactive oceans policy that allows for us to plan for the future instead of just responding to crises as they arise.
Our ocean resources are far too important in this country. We need a management process that works better and serves the interests of all of us in the long term. We cannot afford to continue to make decisions on the management of our fisheries or the management of our other marine resources in isolation from those having to do with shipping or those having to do with environmental protection, and vice versa. Decisions on one have an impact on all others.
We need to bring all these elements together under one roof. This legislation will accomplish that by asserting our national jurisdiction over a 12-mile contiguous zone in which all our national laws regarding fiscal, immigration, customs and environmental matters will apply, while at the same time creating an exclusive economic zone to assert our right to protect and manage all our resources out to a 200-mile limit, including all fish and also including all other resources.
This bill will also extend our authority out over the continental shelf. Bill C-29, passed by the House last year, established our right to protect and manage the so-called straddling stocks of fish that move in and out of the current 200-mile limit. This legislation will reinforce that measure by exerting our authority over the continental shelf itself and the resources found on the shelf.
Canada has always been a world leader in matters to do with the wise management of our ocean resources. We were one of the primary movers urging the UN to focus on the importance of this issue. Successive governments have made the case to our international partners that ocean states can and should have the right to control and protect their coastal waters. We have 250,000 kilometres of coastline, more than anyone else in the world. As such, it has always been in our national interest to seek recognition of our rights in the waters immediately off our shores.
The second thing this legislation does is to put overall responsibility for the creation of oceans management strategy in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. We can proceed in a more organized and cost efficient manner to deliver oceans programs in a more coherent manner. The goal is sustainable development of these vast stretches of our waters. We want to exploit the oceans for ourselves, but we also want to make sure that in doing so we do not damage them for future generations of Canadians or for current and future generations of people in other countries either.
Eight years ago the concept of sustainable development was first introduced in a report of the World Commission on Environment and Development chaired by the current Prime Minister of Norway, Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland. The principles of the Brundtland report are supported in theory at least by almost every nation in the world.
The previous government agreed with the principles in the Brundtland report and in fact made a commitment to bring in a Canada oceans act. However, no such legislation was ever introduced by that government. I congratulate this government for doing so.
Under the terms of this legislation we have before us, the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans will be responsible for the development and enforcement of a new oceans management strategy. It is going to be done with a different approach from that used in the past. It is the government's stated intention to work in partnership with oceans industries and the people in them, the various resource extraction industries and the people involved there, with environmental groups and indeed with anyone who has an interest to come up with the best plan possible.
An example given of this kind of partnership is the Fisheries Resource Conservation Council which brings together industry, educators and governments to advise on conservation in the Atlantic. The council has played an instrumental role in helping the government move to the fishery of the future. The government wants to expand this kind of partnership because it believes that these kinds of partnership approaches will bring the best results. That includes using the best scientific information from as many sources as possible.
It is not going to be a matter of the federal government determining everything itself. It is going to work with other levels of government, the private sector, educators, scientists, environmental groups and all interested parties to make sure that Canada remains on the cutting edge of research and knowledge in this critical area and more important, that Canada uses that knowledge to make the right decisions about how best to manage our ocean resources.
Hon. colleagues will also know that the government has already moved to integrate the coast guard into the department of fisheries. I think this move makes a lot of sense. Bringing together these two fleets of ships and aircraft will save the government money. This is always good news for taxpayers. It is very welcome news for my constituents in the riding of Erie. More than that, it also gives them the opportunity to use all their vessels and aircraft for both
purposes, that is fisheries and resource management as well as the traditional coast guard duties of search and rescue, ice breaking service, marine weather warnings, patrolling our coastal waters and so on.
In addition, the regional offices of both will be consolidated into an enlarged and improved service which means further savings and a much better co-ordination of all activities that have to do with our ocean waters.
Provision is also made in the act to allow the minister of fisheries to carry out scientific research in support of the ocean management strategy. It gives the minister the legal right to produce charts, reports and scientific data and to provide that information to those groups, organizations and individuals who have an interest in these issues. Also included is a new authority to provide guidelines under which foreign vessels can conduct scientific research in Canadian waters.
For the first time the act will give government, following discussions and advice from scientists and other interested parties, a new authority to create protected marine areas, to safeguard ocean biodiversity and to safeguard endangered species.
We all know that our oceans, particularly in our coastal communities, face a great deal of environmental stress as well as the depletion of the ocean resources through the destruction of habitats essential to the survival and growth of certain species. We need to protect these areas from further destruction. I welcome the inclusion of this provision in the act and encourage the minister to use it when scientific evidence demonstrates that it is necessary.
The point has been made by others that passing the legislation by itself does not guarantee that our oceans will be safe from all environmental damage or resource depletion for all time. If it were that simple, I am sure we would have passed a law against the common cold many years ago.
The bill puts a framework in place that will help us reach those goals. It also makes clear that we have to promote our own strategy with all the countries in the world that share oceans with us. In other words we have to make it clear that each of us is responsible for protecting them.
I urge the government and the minister to continue to make Canada's voice heard on issues such as ocean dumping, conservation of straddling stocks, the proper management of our coastal zones, circumpolar management and all other issues that have an impact on the oceans of the world.
The legislation gives us as a nation the opportunity to lead by example, to demonstrate to the world that Canadians care deeply about their ocean resources, that we want to preserve and protect them, and that we are willing to put our money where our mouth is by taking long term action to do so. The oceans act signals a renewal of Canada's leadership in ocean management. I am proud of this initiative asserting Canada's role as a world leader.
Before I conclude I should like to address one point raised by the previous Reform speaker on cost recovery. The oceans act authorizes the minister to fix fees, to recover the cost of services and activities provided for under the act, for example ice breaking, traffic management and hydrographic charts. Access fees for commercial fishermen are established under section 8 of the fisheries act, not under the oceans act. The two pieces of legislation are entirely distinct.
I hope every member of the House will consider the legislation as a very positive step in the right direction and give it their support. I certainly do.