Madam Speaker, I listened with interest for the last several hours to the debate with regard to this bill.
I find something very disturbing as I look through it. I have been very involved in Bill C-68, the gun control bill. Now I look at Bill C-98 and at many other bills before the House and there is a trend that disturbs me very much, a trend toward centralizing power in Ottawa, the big bubble, the place that seems to lose touch with the concerns of grassroots Canadians, the concerns that people have out there trying to make a living, trying to find a livelihood they can depend on. This bill does not address that. In some instances it makes it even more difficult. Let me explain.
A bloated bureaucracy is being developed. There is the minister centralizing power within his office. It is a very top heavy administration, just like in agriculture, an area I am very familiar with. A study was done. In agriculture we have approximately 1 bureaucrat for every 5.8 farmers.
If we look at the fishing industry, how many bureaucrats does it take for the fishermen to fish, to do their work? We have through this bill even more of this type of bureaucracy developing.
I listened to what was said, things like we need to co-ordinate, we need to do all these wonderful things. Are they just euphemisms? Are those code words for more bloated bureaucracy?
I look at other things in the bill. The governments says it will need fees to cut back on the deficits in this area. This is just another word for taxes these fishermen will have to pay.
It was an eye opener for me to go to New Brunswick a couple of weeks ago, to the southwestern part of the province, and talk with the fishermen who are being squeezed out of the fishery by the regulations the government is putting in place, by the taxes in the form of fees which are driving these fishermen out of work. I find that unacceptable. The bill makes that even more possible. We have to start addressing the real concerns of real people out there.
Is it the intention of the government to give big corporations more power to fish? If we talk to the people out there they will tell us about the draggers, the big chains destroying the environment. I hear the member speaking about how the government will protect the environment and protect all of these things. That is not happening. That is not the reality of what is happening.
These people are allowed to fish and the handliners are being restricted. They are not being allowed to fish. It does not make sense that we allow these huge boats that carry these big chains or drag these big nets to fish every day of the week but the handliners are being restricted to one or two days and sometimes not even that.
We have a real problem and the bill does not address that problem. The government is out of touch with reality. It is becoming obvious to Atlantic Canadians that big central government, just like it has become obvious to the Bloc and the people of Quebec and the people of western Canada, is attempting to centralize power and this big central government grabbing this power is not the answer to the needs of people out there. That is a big problem.
What about allowing more fishermen a say in their industry? Is there anything built into the bill, any structure, whereby they can have elected boards or make their bureaucrats and politicians more accountable? I do not see it. It is not there.
It sounds so good to have Ottawa co-ordinate all this stuff. I think it is just another euphemism, another excuse for more big government.
The bill also makes it possible for special interest groups to influence the minister and the bureaucrats to get their way. That is probably happening already at this time.
The government could have done things like extend the 200-mile limit to solve some of these problems, but they are not in here. The teeth for this I do not find in the bill.
In Canada there are over 6,000 department of fisheries officials managing 65,000 licences. It sounds just like the department of agriculture, a huge number of bureaucrats. The fishermen do not warrant such numbers.
The department operates with a budget that exceeds $750 million to administer it. Clearly there is room for a little cost cutting at the very top, and not simply increasing the fees of the fishermen. Perhaps the minister could lead by example and save a little money on his office furniture. That was a concern; maybe one less oak table could have helped one more fisherman in Atlantic Canada. It would say the minister and the department are not treating the fishermen with absolute disdain if there were some cutbacks made by him and by the department.
It is adamantly clear the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans is not committed to downsizing his bloated department. He would rather try to slip a new level of bureaucracy into his department under the guise of broad consultation rather than deal with the harsh realities of downsizing.
Has the minister not got the message? Canadians want less government. Everywhere I go they repeat government members should be listening but they are not. Canadians want less government.
What the Atlantic fishermen tell us in no uncertain terms is their distress over the licensing fees for Atlantic Canadian fishermen is a very serious matter. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans wants to collect $50 million in access fees from the fishermen who ply their trade in the waters off the coast of Atlantic Canada.
These fees are just taxes, as I have already explained. No matter how the Liberals dress them up they are simply more taxes. Fees are nothing new to the industry but it is irresponsible for the government and the minister to subject the fishermen of a region already devastated by mismanagement to further hardship.
These people are having a rough time. They cannot afford this. Talk to them when they have to increase their fees from less than $100 to four times that amount. Some of them will have to pay up to $16,000 if they want to fish in certain parts of the industry.
It is ridiculous that a government would expect them to come up with that kind of money. That is more than their net income in an entire year. This tax will only make things worse for the fishermen. It will be an unbearable burden on all fishermen from coast to coast, not just the people of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland or P.E.I.
The tax increase will be enormous. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans collects about $13 million in licence fees and its goal is to increase this to $50 million, three to four times the present amount. That is totally unacceptable.
Any Atlantic Canadian MP who speaks up for the fishermen in his or her own riding knows well they may end up in political oblivion. The bureaucracy that has developed within the Liberal Party, within this Ottawa bubble, has made it so that the common people cannot even have their voice heard.
Another problem is that in the future any decisions made on the new fees will be through governor in council decrees without parliamentary scrutiny. We saw the same thing on gun control, Bill C-68.
The minister gives himself absolute power to make these regulations, to do these things behind closed doors. That is not acceptable in this day and age. We need to open things up. We need to give the fishermen a voice in what is happening in their own affairs.
What message does this send to Canadians on the accountability of government? Governments need to be more accountable and I do not see it happening in the bill. I wish I could go on. I appreciate the time I have had to represent the people of New Brunswick. I hope the government will listen.