The minister tells me now that it is in there. From what we can determine those two areas are not included. The area specified is the 200-mile nautical limit. If they are in there they should be very carefully specified because those two areas, as he knows, are outside the nautical limit. If the committee purports to amend things in favour of government legislation it should carefully take note and carefully include the nose and the tail of the Grand Banks. Let us not make it as nebulous as these things usually are.
Apparently there is a consolidation of 14 programs as a result of the bill, but a bureaucracy still exists in the department and the minister well knows it. For a department to lose so many clients, if fishermen can be considered clients of the department, I am at a loss why there is not a proportionate decrease in staff directly related to that loss. That is not the case. We lose the fishermen from the system but we do not lose the bureaucrats.
By the way, I talked with the deputy minister at one point. He is no longer the deputy minister and that is not a bad thing either, but the results of the discussion are still the same. I asked how many people in Ottawa, for instance, had been directly related to the fishing industries on the east or west coasts. I had difficulty getting that answer too but finally the answer, if we check the record of that committee meeting, was negligible.
If that were the case, the minister would be well advised to look at the potential. If he wants gainful employment for those who have been put out of work and gainful retraining, he should start replacing the employees of DFO with those directly affected by the mismanagement of the department in the first place. It would go a long way to responding to some of their needs rather than sitting at home in their chairs waiting for the fish to come back.
The minister stated that the act planned for the future rather than responded to the crisis of the day. This may be the first time in recent history that any government actually planned for the future rather than responded to the crisis of the day. I only have to refer the House to the moratorium in TAGS, an absolutely disastrous program. If the government wants to plan for the future, it should
start listening to the people who are involved. That we know, from British Columbia's point of view, is really not the case.
It is not a bad idea to merge the coast guard with the DFO. That was done in April. However, I caught the comments of the minister that are not bound in legislation. The minister said that we would cross train and consolidate the coast guard, that we would consolidate offices, duties and so on.
I do not know if the coast guard knows about it yet, but I am sure those offices are now wondering what the government is up to. It talks about planning. It should not make announcements in the House that it is to start a consolidation program, that it will move them here and there. There are people involved in the exercise. The minister would be well advised to get some advice first and plan the exercise rather than make a people kind of announcement in the House.
The minister commented on the operation of the parliamentary committee on fisheries and the job of the chairman. Thus far the government's committee has basically done a tremendous job. It met and put a separatist as vice-chairman who does not really represent any of the exercise. Perhaps it is part of the Quebec border. That is the exercise of the government thus far. The chairman of the committee has a bigger job. He should go back to the minister and ask: "Why don't you plan this exercise a bit better?"
No mention has been made of fees. I am sure the minister knows how contentious this exercise is. Sections 49, 50, 51 and 52 indicate that the minister may fix fees for service. I have trouble with government fee for service exercises when Canadian taxpayers are paying for government service as it is. They will end up paying for a service that is supposed to be provided twice: once through taxes and once through a fee for service. It is typical of governments at all levels today to say that they are providing us with a service but if they provide it they will charge a fee. That is what taxes were supposed to be for.
For the information of the minister, a fee, a licence or a permit is a tax. The people involved in the fishing industry do not see a fee, a licence and a permit as just more dollars out of their pockets. They see it as more taxation and more costs. They wonder what it will be spent on. It goes into general revenue. Do we get it back? For the minister's information I have some quotes from fishing organizations that he would be interested in.
It gets back to the philosophy of the government. It does not understand that we have a spending problem and not a revenue problem. Successive governments over the last 20 years have been overspending, overspending and overspending. What is their answer? Rather than find ways to cut back they go back to people like fishermen and say they need more money off their backs. That is the Liberal way.
What kind of fees are involved? They say the overall average increase in the fees across the board is approximately 400 per cent. I would like to see how the chairman of the committee will get around that when we talk about it. Congratulations to the Liberals; they will ding fishermen across the board 400 per cent in fees. They say the $30 lobster licence will be $310. That ought to please the fellows who are trying to eke out a living.
The government currently gets approximately $13 million from licence fees, and that is going to $63 million. Is there not a way to look at some efficiencies within DFO to get $50 million rather than license or tax fishermen? Is there not a way? Have they looked at that? It is another job for the chairman of the committee that we will be asking about.
When will it happen? The minister says the government will decide on that by the end of September. That is pretty soon. Fishermen can take note that they will get notice of when fees, licences and permits, these taxes, will be increased.
I am surprised on such a big issue that the minister stood for 40 minutes and told us about John Cabot. That was interesting but the people out there are really asking who is getting taxed, how much and when.
What is it for? The minister says they are progressive fees, progressive taxes; that is the larger the catch, the larger the percentage increase. They are based on the ability to pay. That is fair ball, I suppose. They apply to commercial fisheries on both coasts. The government presumes once again that if there is any possible way to tax them it will do it. It does not look at perhaps not spending money here or there.
We only have to look at the minister's own example that he set for his office furnishings, which we complained about in the House. We only have to look at some of his expenditures, like advertising in New York City when he was promoting himself. I wonder where these folks are coming from.
Why do they want to increase fees? Let us see what they say. The Liberals want an additional $50 million on top of the $200 million in current cuts. They say they can get away with cutting $200 million and then go back to the people they will tax and say: "Look, we cut $200 million; you can pay $50 million". Why can they not look for $250 million in cuts? It is there. Starting from the top it is there.
DFO's budget will apparently be decreased to $500 million from $700 million.
I wonder if there is not more. Where is it? We only have to ask the fishermen. They had all kinds of suggestions about where to cut when I sat down with them. The one thing common with the east and west coast fishermen is they are not asked. They get the
fees, the licences, the permit costs and the taxes but they are not asked where the cuts can come from. Does this sound like the Liberal government? You bet it does.
I talked to employees of DFO who said there are two reasons behind these fee increases. They want more money and they want to reduce the number of fishermen. I said: "If those are your reasons do you have any other alternatives? Is there something you can do other than increase taxes to the fishermen?" I suggested two things which I will suggest here. The answer was they did not think of that. There is a priceless answer. That is a pun to the minister.
What is the impact of these fees? The fees must be paid up front with no instalments. There will be a graduated fee structure. If we have landings of $25,000 worth of catch, the fee is approximately 3 per cent. If we have landings of over $100,000 the fee is approximately 5 per cent, and on it goes. It sounds like the tax structure we are working on today. It is similar to the tax structure we are working on today, so it is a tax.
What does the P.E.I. fishermen's association say about it? The money is simply a form of hidden taxation. That is felt right across the country: "It will not even be funnelled back into the fishery but will go into a consolidated revenue fund or general pot that they will blow away". That is the feeling out there.
Can we take money as was done in the case of British Columbia's forestry? Part of the fees from licences and permits goes toward silviculture. If the government has to take money could it not possibly think to put it back into rejuvenating fishing stock?
The government is looking at more fees for service from coast guard services which now comes under DFO, and for scientific investigations. One has to wonder what the methodology is here. This will be another cash cow like most things the government is involved with. It cannot deal with the fact that it is overspending. All it can deal with is it does not have enough revenue, and that is wrong.
There are some alternatives we could provide. DFO should be managed by fishermen and their dependents, the people in the indirect fisheries. Start moving them in, start training them. Get them involved in DFO in Ottawa, on inland waters, on both coasts.
If they get a piece of that administrative action maybe they will influence ministers to help the industry. Right now there is not that interlocking or interfacing. There is the DFO and a number of fishermen, a resource, a tax resource, which is the way they look at it. Therefore why not have the fishermen manage the resource by getting them involved?
If there are problems within the industry many come from UI regulations. Fishermen will tell us that. They understand that. Let us look at UI regulations. We do not have to license the fishing industry again.
There has been much talk about what happens to Newfoundland fishermen and what they do for a future. Many of them suggest the minister might want to look at inshore fishing again on handlining and getting perhaps some of the people in the villages along the shores active again in handlining and reduce the number of larger ships. They talk about that a lot. Whether it can be done, I do not know. Really all they want is to get out, get their lines in and get at it.
If we look at the number of people who could possibly be employed around the villages as opposed to the number of people employed on the larger ships there is a drastic difference. Since fish plants have been shut down on the coast perhaps there could be regional plants. Perhaps the fish caught by handlining could go to regional plants and then to larger plants. That is a possibility but I do not know if it has been looked at.
We are looking at a flat tax system but the tax system has to take into account that there have to be fewer exemptions. Perhaps if the government looked at the tax system and UI system it could come up with better alternatives than to strike larger fees and licences.
The government has to look again at reducing costs. We know the costs are high there and the government knows it. I do not think its mandarins are willing to let it have much more money. I guess the government has to learn to be a little tougher in dealing with the bureaucracy. As the Liberals are listening and whining about what I am saying, there are a lot of senior bureaucrats in that department. There are a lot of expenses. We do get letters outlining where things should be cut. The fishermen tell us and so the minister should look at it.
In the final analysis we have to look at where the Liberals are coming from on bills such as this. Although I compliment the minister on some of the issues within the bill, particularly the conservation areas, I continue to worry about traditional governments. We have thrown out that other party and the country brought in this party. They are traditional parties intent on looking at balancing books by way of taxing more as opposed to cost cutting. They are intent on perpetuating programs like the Conservative program on the moratorium and the TAGS program which was Liberal.
We are looking at a government truly looking backwards to a future. If anything I sincerely wish this committee well because we will be spending a lot of time on this committee. We will be asking a lot of questions of this minister. We sincerely hope he keeps the interests of the fishermen in mind, not the interests of the bureaucrats in Ottawa.