Mr. Speaker, I listened with a great deal of interest to the words of my friend across the way. I am a little surprised at some of the conclusions he is drawing with respect to Bill C-98.
Bill C-98 at first blush looks like a pretty innocuous bill. It is a good bill in some respects. It recognizes Canada's jurisdiction over an exclusive economic zone and a contiguous zone in accordance with the United Nations convention on the law of the sea. That is a positive move.
It is also supposed to allow the management of all oceans and coastal activities to be co-ordinated under the oceans management strategy and it tries to clarify federal responsibilities in the management of our oceans. I say it is supposed to and tries because the bill is an attempt to address the concerns of the oceans and the fisheries, but it is a failure.
The bill manages to impose a new tax on fishermen. It manages to retain the duplication in the bureaucracy which exists now. It also manages to introduce new levels of bureaucracy.
This is not what fishermen want. It is not what Canadians want or deserve. Canadians want less government, not more. The minister and members of the Liberal government seem to be the only people who do not understand that.
The bill represents the Liberal government's complete lack of understanding of what life is like in Canada as a taxpayer. What will it take for the government to understand it is impossible for Canadians to shoulder any more of an already unbearable tax burden?
What will it take to make the government understand the fishermen of Canada, already victims of a fisheries crisis on both coasts, can barely make ends meet right now? It is either a complete and utter misunderstanding on the part of the minister, although not surprising since he just awarded himself a generous pension out of all proportion to what most Canadians could ever expect, or it is a complete disdain for the plight of the fishermen. As long as his pockets are full and he does not have to make serious cuts in his department, he simply does not care. Look at the attitude he had toward the Canadian taxpayers when he refurbished his office last year at the cost of a couple hundred thousand dollars.
As I said, times are tough for most people involved in the fishery in Canada, but the fisheries minister proposes a new tax on them anyway. Clause 49, page 21 of the bill, explains that the fees are for the service provided by DFO. Would that be the privilege to fish? This is not a service. It also states that fees may not exceed the cost of providing the service. Would that be the cost of DFO, TAGS, unemployment insurance, and other social programs or what? Where does it end?
A tax would only serve to hurt an industry that is already in trouble. DFO already collects $13 million in fees from fishermen, and it wants to increase that to $50 million. That is a 400 per cent increase paid in one lump sum. The fees are based on the landed value of the catch but are paid in one lump sum at the beginning of the season. They will be incremental, not fixed.
The parliamentary secretary said last week in response to questions that were asked in the House that there had not been an increase since 1985 and therefore he was condoning the decision. A 400 per cent increase paid in one lump sum is not reasonable. Imagine if you will your hydro bill going up 400 per cent in one lump sum, or your phone bill or your mortgage payment. If this were happening to me I would push my MP to oppose such attempts. But alas, Atlantic fishermen have no one to turn to. Reform is the only party here to hear their voice.
This tax is a way for the Liberals to get the fishermen out of the industry. The minister wants to tax them out of the water. The minister calls this a user fee, but he is wrong. User fees are in return for services rendered. There are no services rendered here.
There are 31 Atlantic Canadian Liberal MPs and one from an extinct party. Where do the fishermen have to go? Reform is their only voice. We were in Atlantic Canada a couple of weeks ago and this is what we heard consistently. I feel rather bad for the Liberal MPs who come from Atlantic Canada who are going to be required to support the bill, because the people in Atlantic Canada are going to remember them for it.
The minister enjoys trying to impress the international community, but what about Canadians? Is the tax supposed to impress them?
Let us talk about another aspect of the bill; it is called partnershipping. This means that the minister under the bill will have the discretion to enter into partnership agreements on the management of the fishery resource in Canada-at his discretion.
I would like to read an excerpt from a letter I received from people in Atlantic Canada who are concerned about where this is going to lead. I quote:
In general, our concerns arise out of a potential that the Bill will permit delegation of actual resource management authority to anyone whom the Minister may see fit to nominate for this purpose. This regime has potential to be even more unpredictable and unchallengeable than the present "absolute discretion" of the Minister for which Section 7 of the Fisheries Act provides. "Management" of fisheries resources (including such decisions as access to and allocation of the resource) are critically important to individual fishermen. The delegation of such decisions to committees, who are not subject to even the dubious control of political accountability, would create opportunities for management by special-interest groups.
Fisheries management in Atlantic Canada has had a dismal history of inability to ensure that the greatest good accrues to the greatest number of participants in the industry. See, for example, the third report of the Standing Senate Committee on Fisheries, dated June 23, 1993. Strong leadership, a fair and reviewable decision-making process, and clear legislative mandates as to exactly whom benefits from the fishery are to principally accrue to, are required to address and to correct the fundamental problems in the industry.
The special provision in Bill C-98 which raises the concern expressed above is in Section 32(c):
- For the purpose of the implementation of integrated management plans, the Minister may
(c) on his own or her own or jointly with another person or body or with another minister, board or agency of the Government of Canada,
(i) establish advisory or management bodies and appoint or designate, as appropriate, members of those bodies, and (ii) recognize established advisory or management bodies;
The scope to which this provision would permit delegation of unfettered and unreviewable authority to unidentified and unaccountable persons is of great concern to the independent fishermen whom it is my privilege to represent.
Mr. Speaker, you can see there is a great deal of concern in Atlantic Canada over these partnership provisions in Bill C-98.
Let us talk for a minute about the bureaucracy. Will the size of the bureaucracy be affected in any way by Bill C-98? Is this consolidation of legislation under one umbrella called the Canada oceans act going to in any way affect the bureaucracy? On paper the shuffle looks good, but the reality is it is not going to affect the bureaucracy in any tangible way.
The DFO is already a bloated department and is extremely top heavy. With the cutbacks we see the minister is talking about destaffing lighthouses while the offices in Ottawa on Kent Street remain fully staffed. Nobody has made any concerted effort to rationalize DFO's bureaucracy from the top down. They are starting from the bottom up. We see conservation officers being taken off the beat, we see enforcement officers being taken off the beat, but we do not see the bureaucracy addressed in any tangible way.
This bill was obviously drafted by bureaucrats, not parliamentarians. I guess we cannot expect them to address the need for cuts by cutting their own department, can we? It is really unfortunate that with this opportunity the minister and the government did not seize it and seriously address the size of DFO's bureaucracy.
Let us talk about ocean protection. Yes, this will be a step toward ratifying the United Nations convention on the law of the sea, but what else? What about the extension of the 200-mile limit? The minister crusaded so proudly against the Spanish fleet off our Grand Banks, and he was supported by a great number of Canadians for doing so, but what of the protection he so strongly hinted was on its way? This bill does absolutely nothing to address the extension of the 200-mile limit to cover the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks. I understand the minister made such indications here in the House earlier today. I am here to say that it does nothing to extend Canada's jurisdiction in those areas. This bill does not give the governing body any real authority. It has no teeth. Governing is only possible with authority.
As with gun control, cabinet will iron out the details of this bill later. We are talking about order in council decisions. Understandably, the fishermen in the industry do not trust it. After all, it was the government's mismanagement that got us into this whole mess in the first place. Why trust them? They have only shown that their own interests are at heart and not those of their constituents.
This bill does not invoke thoughts of government accountability in the minds of Canadians and in particular in the minds of fishermen. Instead it promotes fears of trickery and backroom dealings. The Liberal cabinet needs to make the decisions by order in council because even some of their own members are upset about this bill. We all know what the Prime Minister does with members who represent their constituents.
Cabinet could hike fees again next year without parliamentary scrutiny and without public debate. It is no holds barred for the Liberals. These are legitimate concerns. If the Liberals were implementing legislation they knew would better the fishery, why hide behind cabinet? Why would they be afraid of a public debate on the matter?
I am concerned that this will mean the special interest groups will be allowed to control the agenda. The conservation of the fishery should be in the interest of all Canadians, not just a select few.
The Reform Party cannot support a bill that would increase taxes and increase the size of government. Do the minister and this government not understand that Canadians want less government and taxes, not more? This bill is nothing more than a cowardly tax grab to ensure the job security of bloated DFO offices in Ottawa. The minister could not really have thought that fishermen and Parliament would ever condone such an act.