Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to speak to Bill C-26, the oceans act.
I am going to deal with very specific areas that the government and previous governments have failed to deal with in an extremely important aspect of Canadian society. The oceans surround our country on three sides. Within those oceans exist enormous opportunity and responsibility: commercially, socially, with respect to protecting the environment and the species that live within them. These waters can benefit not only Canadians but also people around the world.
First I want to speak about the minister's plan dealing with the commercial fishing strategy, which to me, living in British Columbia, is a huge disappointment. The various sectors in the commercial fishing groups have met with the minister and have expressed concrete, specific and reasonable proposals that are fair to everybody and would save our fisheries for today and into the future.
Instead, the minister proposed the Mifflin plan which unfortunately is going to decimate the commercial fishing strategy on the west coast. It will produce an east coast disaster on the west coast. This is an entirely preventable situation. What is the minister going to do?
The minister is going to centre the commercial fishery into a very small number of hands. He is decreasing the number of fishing boats, which is a good thing, but instead of doing it in a fair way, he is making sure that commercial fishing in British Columbia is in the hands of a very small number of large players. The outcome will be great unemployment among the commercial fishing sector. The little communities up and down the coast of British Columbia that have survived for decades on fishing for their livelihood will be decimated. The social implications cannot be underestimated.
It is clear to everybody in the House what it means to a small community to have its single industry ripped from it. This does not need to happen. Because of the fees being implemented, the commercial fisheries in British Columbia will be in the hands of the large boats and producers. The little people will be out of a job, out of work and up the creek.
An intelligent strategy needs to be put forward. Along with scientists, the minister should define what the allowable catch should be. That information should be given to the different groups that will decide for themselves how they are going to divide it up. In that way the government does not get involved in how this will be done and it does not get the flack for it. The sole responsibility lies within the different commercial fishing strategies themselves. It would also include the sports fishing strategy which must not be underestimated as it has been in the past.
In British Columbia there are 300,000 sports fishermen. These individuals inject billions of dollars into the British Columbia economy every year.
This minister and previous governments have utterly ignored this important sector. They tell them how much fish they can catch every year far too late. For example, beginning in January are the first trade shows for the sports fishing groups in British Columbia. They need to know before these shows how much they are allowed to catch, where they are allowed to fish, to be able to get visitors and tourists from around the world to come to our waters to fish.
Last year those data came down in the spring. As a result visitors who would normally come to the waters of British Columbia to fish said they are not coming because they believe there will not be any fish to fish and they do not know how much they can fish. A lot of people from around the world felt there was simply no salmon to catch in British Columbia. That is an avoidable tragedy.
If this continues the sports fishing groups within British Columbia will be decimated at a huge loss to British Columbia and the Canadian economy.
These data are available in November. I am proposing that the minister, with scientists, determine how many fish the sports fishing groups can take and where they can take it from. The minister will let them know what that catch is going to be by December 1. That is a challenge I put to the minister of fisheries and the people who work in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
If he can do that one thing then our sports fishing groups will have the opportunity and the ability to get fishermen from around the world to come to Canada, to spend their money and inject money into the Canadian economy. This can happen and I implore him to do this now rather than waiting until the spring when it is too late.
One of the things the minister is not doing is addressing the commercial fishing strategy in an intelligent fashion. He is not setting appropriate limits, he is setting them too late and he is not enabling them to divide up the catch among themselves in a way that is appropriate.
Many intelligent ideas have come from commercial fishing groups such as catching at the mouths of rivers or outside of certain areas and not setting up a wall of net so that the fish do not get vacuumed out of the ocean. The minister must let the fish go up the river in adequate numbers to lay their eggs and smaller fish to come down later one. If he does not do this the stream will die.
The minister has been negligent in addressing the whole aspect of enforcement. It is critically important when you are speaking about enforcement that it take place fairly and equitably regardless of nationality, the colour of skin or ethic origin. It is imperative that the minister tell his Department of Fisheries and Oceans officers who are currently hamstrung by the upper echelons in the bureaucracy that they must enforce the law to the benefit of all.
I do not care who you are, everybody will benefit by the fair and equitable enforcement of the law. Currently that is not happening. A blind eye is given to certain segments of our society that fish and poach. The officers of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the RCMP are told not to deal with them because the government is afraid of having a confrontation with these people or being labelled racist or anti-aboriginal, and that is not acceptable.
It does a huge disservice to the aboriginal people who, for example, are fishing within their limits in a fair and equitable way, as the vast majority are, and who are interested in having a long term sustainable fishery. It does a huge disservice to the non-aboriginal community members who feel left out of the loop and who feel they are being treated as second class citizens. One law for everybody and it has to be enforced. That way you get respect for the laws of the land. Without that no respect exists.
The minister must also bring together the people who actually damaged the environment in which the fish are living. Habitat rejuvenation is one of the key elements in rejuvenating our west coast fishery. There are a large number of streams that have been decimated by logging and mining.
It is important that these streams get back to where they were but it is equally important that the taxpayer not pay for that. Those who actually polluted are those who should pay. That is where the minister's job comes in. That is where the minister has to take a leadership role and say "you damaged the stream, you are going to fix it up but we are going to work in a co-ordinated way to provide you with the ability to do this". Perhaps some tax benefits for doing this would be advisable.
In doing that we can rejuvenate our streams, increase the flows of wild stocks of salmon and thereby increase the economic viability of our west coast fishery. All of these things are interwoven and all of them must be addressed: adequate dealings with the commercial and sports fishing sectors, setting adequate limits for all of those groups, habitat rejuvenation, law enforcement.
If the minister could stop studying these issues and start acting on them, perhaps we will be able to save our west coast fishery instead of looking into the eyes of the east coast disaster.
Another aspect that is critically important on the west coast which this bill could deal with but does not is the whole aspect or lighthouses. It has been shown quite unequivocally that the destaffing of lighthouses on the west coast is going to have a negative effect on the safety of the people who ply our waters in that area. It has been shown not only from a safety aspect but, more important, from an economic aspect. If we are going to deal with cold, hard facts, let us deal with them.
If we destaff a lighthouse it is going to cost the taxpayer more money to service that lighthouse than if there were somebody there right now. The amount of money that person actually puts into maintaining that lighthouse far exceeds that person's wages, far exceeds the cost to the taxpayer. It is senseless and utterly idiotic to destaff lighthouses on the west coast.
I implore the minister before it is too late to look at this again, look at it intelligently, look at the facts. I am sure he will come to the conclusion that it is better not to deman our lighthouses on the west coast.
There are also other local initiatives that can be supported. The western marine community in British Columbia has put a proposal for the funding of our coast guard. It is a sensible proposal. It is a proposal that would not cost the taxpayer more money. It is a proposal that would provide for effective coast guard search and
rescue responses in British Columbia. I ask the minister again to look at this very good proposal by the western marine community.
As well, there are a lot of local initiatives where the people have come together to put forth search and rescue capabilities in the smaller communities which are not easily serviced by the coast guard. These are inexpensive ways of providing safety on the west coast. The minister can take a leadership role not by putting more money into the system but by encouraging these initiatives with the local groups and again have a user pay situation.
I am sure the boaters who ply the waters on the west coast will not mind paying for this service that they will desperately need at some time in their lives.
Another large area that this bill does not deal with and one that is very close to my heart and I am sure the hearts of many Canadians, in particular the youth of Canada, is the environment. As we speak, there are huge problems with respect to pollution within our oceans. That is manifested, for example, in the elevation of toxic carcinogenic, teratogenic materials such as PCBs and many other substances that are going through our food chain and are magnifying themselves as they go up the food chain. The outcome of that is these animals are dying but in the larger area we can see that if we are at the top of the food chain, these toxins and carcinogens are also accumulating within us.
We may think this is not a problem, but I would draw the attention of the House to the Arctic. The people who live in the Arctic are suffering from greater teratogenic effects, genetic abnormalities and cancer rates than would normally occur. The reason this is occurring is that toxins and carcinogens are accumulating in the food chain. When people eat, the toxins and carcinogens accumulate in them and the outcome is a medical disaster.
I plead with the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, the Minister of Health and the Minister of the Environment to bring forth intelligent and effective solutions to this problem. It cannot be done in isolation. The pollutants in our Arctic also come from other Arctic countries.
I was in Yellowknife earlier this year where the countries of the Arctic got together to discuss this issue. I had hoped to see some action. Unfortunately they chose to study the problem and create an Arctic council to look at the problem. The time for studying and examining has run out. The time has long past for another royal commission or for a House of Commons committee to study the problem. We need action now. The people of the Arctic need action now. If anyone doubts me, let them go to the Arctic and let them look at the horrible diseases which are affecting those people. It is going to get worse.
We are a leader in a number of areas. One of the areas in which we are a leader is research. On the west coast, in Victoria, there is a superb research facility which provides research that is commercially applicable and scientifically applicable. Scientists from all over the world look to us and derive information from our research for their own uses.
Cuts must be made, but we should not cut important research. The research done in these areas will have a dramatic effect on our society which will benefit all of us. It would be penny wise and pound foolish for us to cut research in these areas.
A few years ago we had an excellent opportunity to be a world leader in fish farming. The Chileans took it away from us because we let them. Icelanders came to us a few years ago and said: "Canada, we are very good at fish farming. We are very good at managing our fisheries. Let us work with you in developing co-operative strategies to improve commercial and sports fishing within Canada". They went home disgusted. They went home despondent. They could not believe that Canada did absolutely nothing to save its fisheries. They saw the potential which existed within our great country. Why could we not?
Our fisheries and our oceans provide an enormous opportunity. With that opportunity comes a great responsibility. We have done a huge disservice to the oceans. Instead of taking a proactive, intelligent and effective role in managing our fisheries and oceans we have abrogated that responsibility to the detriment of this sector. We will pay for it in the future. It is not too late to do something about it. I know the minister would like to work with my colleagues in the Reform Party and with members of the Bloc Quebecois. Together we can work with members of the public and interested sectors to provide good, effective strategies to save our commercial and sports fishing and our oceans and their environment.
I put that challenge to the minister. I welcome his response forthwith.