Mr. Speaker, in my remarks I want to respond to some of the comments which the hon. member for Gander-Grand Falls made this morning in debate.
The member is, of course, quite right when he talks about the foreign overfishing that has taken place in Canadian waters and just outside Canadian waters which affects Canadian fish stocks.
He is quite right when he notes that it was the Conservative government between 1984 and 1992 which dramatically increased, by agreement, the amount of foreign fishing in Canadian waters.
I do not refer to these amendments as being amendments to the Fisheries Act. I know that is how the government treats them. However, if we look at the bill, it will create a new act. It replaces the old act almost entirely.
There are, indeed, some aspects of the bill which are good. The problem, and it is the same problem we have with many pieces of government legislation, is that buried in among the parts of the legislation which we can support are many aspects of the legislation that we find totally reprehensible. Therefore we have to decline our support for the entire piece of legislation.
I hope that members who feel strongly about foreign fishing in Canadian waters and outside Canadian territorial waters, which affects Canada's fish stocks, will understand that what we are
saying is that the entire bill is so comprehensive and so far reaching in its impacts that we cannot support it. I am going to go through the main reasons, in the limited time I have, to discuss why we cannot support the bill.
There are problems in almost every fishery in Canada today. There are some fisheries that, thankfully, do not experience very many problems or any serious problems at the present time. However, they are the exception and not the rule.
Whether Pacific salmon, Atlantic groundfish or lobster, most of the fisheries in Canada are having problems of one sort of another and some are very serious problems.
In 1992-93 the government had to declare a moratorium on groundfish and cod in Atlantic Canada. We heard scientists talking about environmental conditions, seal populations and so on, but the raw fact is those stocks were overfished and overfished habitually and regularly for many years.
Why were they overfished? In essence the decision making with respect to catch limits, who could actually have a licence and how the resource was going to be managed was basically driven by politics, not by science and not by sound business principles. It was driven by politics and of course the results are obvious.
I remember clearly watching the former minister of fisheries and oceans under the Conservative government, Mr. Crosbie, in a press conference in Newfoundland. He was sitting surrounded by DFO officials and he said: "We are hearing some scientific evidence that is suggesting that we should reduce our quotas and reduce the harvest rates on cod. But we are not prepared to make those kinds of decisions because there are too many people who are depending on this fishery for their jobs and their livelihood. We think the scientific evidence is not strong enough and therefore we are just going to allow the current catch rates to continue". And they did. They fished it right into the ground.
Yes, there may have been some environmental conditions which added to the problem. Yes, there may have been some problems with respect to seals which added to the problem but the seals were not the main problem and the environment was not the main problem. Those stocks were fished into oblivion. There remains the question today of whether those stocks are going to rejuvenate over time.
There is some indication and a ray of hope that some of these stocks are starting to rebound as we speak and have been for the last couple of years since the moratorium was imposed. That is some stocks, but not all of them. Even the ones that have improved have improved only marginally. There are not massive increases in recruitment, massive increases in stock levels. There has been some minor improvement and in some cases an improvement that is encouraging for all who depend on the fishery.
The main problem is that politics has driven the decision making process. It has been the same whether it has been a Tory government or a Liberal government; it has been political decision making.
For example, we have the FRCC now saying that there is a minor improvement in stock levels. There is some hope that these stocks are going to come back. We have a discussion taking place this fall as to whether the cod fishery in Newfoundland, the upper St. Lawrence River and Bay of Fundy is going to be reopened next year for a limited commercial harvest.
Frankly, while I can understand that the FRCC would like to have more and better information with respect to stocks, and that is part of the reason it is recommending a very limited opening, in my view it is a major mistake for the government to look at any kind of a commercial harvest under the present circumstances. I am very concerned that we are going to have a decision from the minister very soon suggesting that is exactly what we are going to see next year.
We have to get away from politics driving the decision making process. This bill does not address any of the problems that I talked about. It is going to give the minister much more power than he has at the present time. The underlying reason for that is that the minister wants to make more political decisions and not less.
The minister wants to be able to enter into agreements with individual groups and organizations for access to fish stocks on an exclusionary basis. That is something we have never seen in Canada before. We know that the underlying reason for it is that the government is trying to justify the aboriginal fishing strategy in British Columbia. We know there is no constitutional or legal support for the pilot sales aspect of the aboriginal fishing strategy, which is what the government is trying to protect.
With the recent court decisions that were made this year, the government has absolutely no foundation whatsoever to maintain an aboriginal fishing strategy and the pilot sales aspect of it in British Columbia. However, it appears intent on doing that and it is looking to this legislation to lend support to that decision.
I see that my time is up. We will be dealing with this matter further in debate.