Debates of Oct. 23rd, 1997

Supply

[Norman E. Doyle, Progressive Conservative, St. John's East, NL]

Why didn't he go?

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

I have no idea. You will have to ask him that. He may have been fishing.

It is a very, very complex problem. However I am very proud to say that at least my party and our leader have initiated this debate. As my colleague has said, we should have more days like this because we are dealing with the future of regions of the country, particularly the Atlantic region. If we do not debate and suggest solutions, then there is a region of the country that may just disappear. It is the role and responsibility of the federal government to find solutions.

This country is so diverse and our problems are so different. All that the people of Atlantic Canada are asking is to continue to be a part of this great nation and to be treated with dignity and respect and be allowed to stay where they have lived, worked and been educated.

In concluding, I would like to move the following amendment. I move:

That the amendment be amended by deleting the words “continue the implementation of” and substituting therefor the word “implement”.

Why I say that is, how can you continue the implementation of something that you have never implemented, such as a national policy on sustainable fisheries? How can you continue to implement something when the auditor general so clearly highlighted in his report that there is no clearly defined national policy on sustainable fisheries?

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Questions and comments.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Madam Speaker, he has proposed a subamendment.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

We will consider the receivability of the amendment and will get back to you very shortly. In the meantime I think we should proceed with questions and comments.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Madam Speaker, what solutions does the hon. member for Burin—St. George's have? He had a lot of criticism in his remarks. Having sat through several fisheries meetings now, I would like him to soon get to the point of proposing some solutions that we could add to what we are already proposing in terms of our national fisheries policy.

In his passion he got a little carried away and I would like to clear up a couple of facts.

He tried to leave the impression that this government is doing nothing on the west coast in terms of the salmon treaty. Nothing could be further from the truth. On that issue, the minister of fisheries has travelled extensively, to Oregon and Washington and has met with senators and congressmen and people in British Columbia. The Prime Minister has appointed two special representatives to report back to him. We are dealing with that issue and we are making progress. It surprises me that the member for Burin—St. George's is now crawling into bed with the NDP premier of the province of B.C. I can hardly believe that.

I hope he is at least admitting that we did what we had to do on the east coast in terms of dealing with the initial crisis in the downturn of the fishery. We tried to be there to support the communities and the fisher people. We in fact have welcomed the auditor general's critique of that particular program and what fisheries and oceans is doing. We said in committee the other day that we are going to use those results to learn some lessons. And we have in fact. I think the hon. member agrees with this point. We have appointed Mr. Harrigan to look at the impact on those communities and he is doing that at the moment in going to those communities now.

Having said that and having tried to clear up those facts, out of all his remarks could the hon. member highlight for me a couple of areas where he is proposing solutions in terms of a comprehensive national fisheries policy which the motion suggests. I have not heard anything in terms of solutions.

[The Acting Speaker (Ms. Thibeault)]

Before proceeding with questions and comments, I advise the House that the subamendment has already been ruled out of order by the Deputy Speaker this morning. Therefore, that decision stands and we will proceed with questions and comments.

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

Madam Speaker, I listened with interest to the parliamentary secretary asking about solutions. We are talking about a national policy for a sustainable fisheries.

Can we imagine being minister of fisheries and oceans and trying to make management decisions about fisheries on either coast without adequate research and adequate science? Therein lies a big problem. The government has gutted the research and science budgets of DFO. The solution is to get money back into the research and science budgets and to get research and science activities operating on both coasts to determine exactly what fish are there and what environmental problems are being experienced.

We hear talk on the east coast about the effects of cold water, the effects of seals and the effects of foreign overfishing. We are now talking about a fishery of the future without in essence a budget for science and research.

I ask the parliamentary secretary and the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans how they can make any management decisions. How can we ever hope to have a sustainable fisheries if we do not have proper and adequate research and science? Excuse the pun, but we have been floundering around too long.

It was indicated at the parliamentary committee this morning that a former minister of fisheries set a total allowable catch of double what the scientific community recommended. That is bad enough. We can blame that on the minister. However, to be making management decisions when they do not have anything to base them on and then trying to shift the blame on to people in those regions of the country for all they have done—

[Steve Mahoney, Liberal, Mississauga West, ON]

Do you want to spend money or cut taxes?

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

I have not met the hon. member. Maybe I should never meet him. Does he realize the value of fish resources to the people of Canada? Both of them are in big trouble.

The member is saying that they would not spend any money on research and science. They would keep on making the same old mistakes. They would let the stocks go down the tube and more people would be unemployed.

Does it not make more sense to put money into science and research so that we make sound management decisions, have a sustainable fishery and keep people employed on the Atlantic and west coasts? What is wrong with spending some money to do that?

Are they going to cut spending money on everything? Maybe that is the member's solution. If they do that they will wipe out Atlantic Canada.

[An hon. member]

I am trying to help.

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

He is not trying to help me. He is not trying to help Atlantic Canadians. He is trying to help Paul Martin and his quest to become prime minister. He has lost sight of his priorities.

[Paul Szabo, Liberal, Mississauga South, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. With due respect, I am sitting hear and listening to the member referring to the finance minister by name.

I wonder if you would admonish the member, Mr. Speaker, and advise him not to use the minister's name.

[The Deputy Speaker]

I have been making gestures to the hon. member who was speaking. I thank the hon. member for Mississauga South for drawing the rules to the attention of the House. I have been striving to do that. Given his distance from the Chair, perhaps he was unable to hear me.

Perhaps we could proceed with the next question.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I fully respect the member and the passion he brings to the debate. I mean that with all sincerity.

We can take a look at the fact that the department had adequate research and science and consistently under the government of his party made political decisions that created the problem. He says we have been floundering around too long and guess who has been in charge. He talks about the mismanagement of successive governments. The member referred to NCARP about which former Fisheries Minister John Crosbie said:

The government will have to change the assistance. It will not be able to go on paying people for doing nothing.

When his leader of today was environment minister the Tory government knew for at least five years before the 1992 moratorium that cod stocks were seriously declining. The former environment minister, now leader of his party, could have used this information to save dwindling cod stocks while there was still hope.

This member and the member for Saint John say that we should not be dealing in the past, that we have to deal with the future. I agree. If the people who created the problem in the first place have the audacity to stand in the Chamber today and say we are wrong and they have all the answers, what hope do the people of Atlantic Canada have?

The Reform Party is gaining ground in Atlantic Canada for the simple reason that we bring a fresh approach. Clearly the Liberal approach, the Tory approach and the NDP approach have ended up putting Atlantic Canada into the position it is in currently. That is a crying shame because of the kind of people and the kind of resources in Atlantic Canada.

The Reform Party has some fresh new ideas, not the regurgitated ideas of the member's party. In the same way as the parliamentary secretary to the fisheries minister asked, I specifically ask what the new ideas are. They will have to break away from the past failures of the Conservatives on this issue.

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

Mr. Speaker, I apologize for using the name of the finance minister. I could have said other things.

I want to respond to the hon. member. I have been here since June 2. I am new to the House of Commons. Whoever made mistakes made mistakes. I will not stand here and try to defend mistakes that were made by former governments. That is not my role. That is the way it is with me.

[Jim Abbott, Reform, Kootenay—Columbia, BC]

What is the new idea?

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

I know the member's new idea. There would be no Atlantic Canada if the member had his way. He would cut us off. There would be nothing in the east. The elitists from the west cannot identify with the problem in the east.

Are they really gaining ground in Atlantic Canada? Is there any doubt about that?

[Darrel Stinson, Reform, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

For three years you can let them dry back there.

[Bill Matthews, Progressive Conservative, Burin—St. George's, NL]

What are you talking about? Let what dry?

[The Deputy Speaker]

Order. The time for questions and comments has expired.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans]

Mr. Speaker, I have noticed many times when I rise to answer questions that this microphone is defective.

[The Deputy Speaker]

The light is not working in the front row. That is why it is not on. I assure the minister, when I sit down, that his microphone will be switched on and all will hear him. The lights are not working today, just so that he is aware.

[David Anderson, Liberal, Victoria, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am delighted to know my switch is activated by your sitting down in the chair.

I congratulate the hon. member, the Conservative Party critic, but he does remind me of the words of a former minister of fisheries of the House, namely Mr. John Crosbie, who said “No one will pressure more for short-sighted and bad decisions than provincial fisheries ministers”.

The member was a former minister in Newfoundland. Month after month, year after year, Mr. Crosbie had to put up with the pressure of bad decisions being made that led to the collapse of the fishery. He is as responsible as any member here. It is amazing that during the time Mr. Mulroney was in government the Liberal Party did not make decisions. I wished to explain to the hon. member of the Reform Party.

I refer to the problem Mr. Crosbie outlined in his new book. I recommend that hon. members buy it; it is cheap at the price. The book points out that people like the hon. member were the cause of the decline of the Atlantic fisheries. Indeed they were the cause of the collapse of the Atlantic fisheries. For him to come here today and happily say that he is new here and not here to defend mistakes, as he literally did two minutes ago, is a bit thick.

I refer to the motion before the House:

That this House recognize the urgent need for action to address the serious problems in Canadian fisheries on both the Pacific and Atlantic coasts, and calls upon the government to establish a comprehensive national fisheries policy that demonstrates real commitment to resource conservation, leadership on the issue of resource sharing with foreign interests, and sensitivity to the individuals, families and communities whose futures are linked to the health and sustainability of the Canadian fisheries industry.

We have put an amendment forward. My hon. colleagues, the parliamentary secretary, has put an amendment forward pointing out that the objectives outlined in this resolution are in fact the current policy of the government which took over from the Conservative Party and changed the very policies that created the problem we have.

The hon. member, typically Conservative, forgot one basic. He talked about from coast to coast. There are three coasts to Canada. The Arctic coast is also important, with important fisheries. He should recognize, like many of his Conservative friends, that he is living in the past when he refers to only two coasts.

He mentioned science. Recently I had the opportunity to travel in the Arctic region. I was on a coast guard vessel, the Louis St. Laurent , now the world's premier platform for scientific work in ice regions. Some first class work is being done under the surface heating and Sheba-Jois programs. This program involves freezing the ice-breaker in the ice for 12 months. People are coming to us wanting to work with DFO scientists in this very important area. It refers to global warming and other issues, namely reflection of the surface and other problems we face in the Arctic.

At least 20 American organizations including all the premier research organizations in the United States, for example Scripts and Woods Hall, are putting up $5.1 million of the total $8.1 million cost. They would not come to Canada to work with us if they knew that our science was not the best in the world. The American organizations involved could go anywhere in the world to work with any other nation or could do it themselves. They come here because we do the best work in the world. Our scientists at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and in our universities are the best in the world.

It is important for the hon. member to recognize that his criticisms are off the mark when it comes to science. They are cheap shots at our good scientists. As a member of the fisheries committee he should ask its chairman and the parliamentary secretary to make sure the committee has the scientists before it. Then he can learn what he obviously does not know now, which he admits by getting up and saying that he is new here and knows nothing.

He referred to the Atlantic groundfish stocks and the consequence of the collapse. We have had to cope with the consequence to business, communities and individuals. They have all had to change a way of life and a tradition their families practised for generations. I know the hon. member has experience with that. We needed a national effort to assist those in trouble and to rebuild a sustainable Atlantic fishery.

Members opposite, members of the Conservative Party and the member who was a provincial minister of fishery, cannot sit here and pretend they had nothing to do with it. They cannot pretend they had nothing to do with the state of the groundfishery off Atlantic Canada in their years of government when the cod stocks collapsed and 40,000 Atlantic Canadians were out of work. Rather than sit on the sidelines and look for someone to blame, this government has applied what we have learned from the lessons of that groundfish collapse.

We have learned that the stocks are not inexhaustible. I quote a former department of agriculture publication about codfish and the east coast fisheries in 1885: “Unless the order of nature is overthrown, for centuries to come our fisheries will continue to be fertile”. We proved that wrong in Atlantic Canada. We proved that the fishery is exhaustible and the policies that created that were the policies of the previous Conservative government and the policies of the previous speaker who was the minister of fisheries of the province of Newfoundland and Labrador.

We have had to recognize that we need to change our ways. Fleet sectors have changed their ways, individuals have changed their ways, processes have changed their ways, governments have changed their ways. The people who have not changed their ways are the reactionaries of the Conservative Party who sit opposite.

Studies have dissected the failings of the past. Prescriptions have been put forward as the way for the future. We have all embraced the need for change with the sole exception of the Conservative Party. We have all attempted to face the future with new prescriptions.

The fishery of Atlantic Canada is being downsized and restructured. It has secured new sources of raw material and focused on new products. Some of that raw material comes from the Bering Sea. It has been and is becoming more resilient, adaptive and despite all odds has moved forward.

Through the painful lesson of stock reduction and moratoria we have been reminded that we must always put conservation of the resource first. We in government have learned the need to change our relationship with the industry and we know now that we cannot do it ourselves, that partnership and co-operation with the other players are essential. I offer to the hon. member and his party that co-operation, that willingness to work with them so we can get away from the attitudes that so dominated the Conservative Party year after year in the past.

I will quickly mention the international commitment to conservation through our efforts to negotiate the United Nations fisheries agreement on straddling stocks and through NAFO, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization. In recent years we have worked successfully through NAFO to put in place the necessary control mechanisms such as onboard observers and port inspections as well as management decisions in accordance with the best scientific advice, international scientific advice as well as Canadian advice, which is still the best of all international science available.

When it comes into force, the UN fish agreement will provide the foundation in international law for effective conservation of straddling and highly migratory stocks on the high seas. That means groundfish.

Opposition members come into this House and call for a national fisheries policy. Unfortunately the only thing they can say about their proposed national fisheries policy is that they would like it to be “comprehensive”. When my parliamentary secretary even asked the gift question to the Tories of what they would do, they had no answer for him whatsoever.

So let us look at what does constitute a national fisheries policy. Does it mean a national policy across the country which my hon. friend was hinting at when he started to talk about British Columbia, a national standard, one size fits all policy at a time when we are recognizing the importance of diversity? Of course not. Does it mean, and this is even more troubling, that opposition members have ignored the views and input of fishermen and their organizations from across the country? Does it mean they are so divorced from reality that they are not even aware there are differing views of what the fishery of the future should be? Are they pretending that our job as legislators is to be responsive to those views or not? Are they asking us to do what they did, which is to ignore the very people who make their living from the fishery?

I have met with fishermen from coast to coast to coast. Had the hon. member not had such a comfortable summer, had he looked at what was going on within the fishery, he would have known that instead of making the errors which he did in his earlier presentation.

I have been to St. John's, his city, six times since becoming Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.

First in the national policy we must develop an environmentally sustainable fishery. Conservation must be first. We must accept the notion that conservation is central to the economic viability of individuals and companies engaged in the fishery and of the well-being of the communities that depend on the fisheries for their very existence.

I challenge any member opposite to tell me that environmental sustainability is not the best principle for the fishery. I challenge any member opposite to rise and tell me that there is any better way of putting in place that conservation concept than through the precautionary principle of making sure we err on the side of caution.

I challenge any member opposite to rise in their place and tell us why they did not put conservation first and why they did not apply the conservation principle in the decade they were in power here in Ottawa and in the similar period when they were in power in St. John's.

The second principle which I have put forward very clearly is that the fishery of the future must be economically viable. It must be managed so as to provide participants with a good livelihood, something better than subsistence. The fishery must not been seen, as it has been in the past, as the employer of last resort or as the doorway to some government program of support.

As a nation we have been blessed with a diverse and valuable marine resource base. We must continue to develop that base and develop the tools to manage it so that we have a good return for the participants to be able to sustain their coastal communities, not just in the best years but year in and year out in the fishery. That means there must be a recognition that the fishery will be smaller.

Once again I refer the hon. member to the words of wisdom of my predecessor, the hon. John Crosbie, when he discussed this in his book. If he looked at the St. John's newspaper this morning he would know that there are excerpts quoted in that very paper. He would see in those excerpts Mr. Crosbie's recognition of the errors of the past and his commitment to a sustainable fishery in the future based on that reduced size.

There have to be fewer participants and harvesting capacity must be more in balance with the capacity of the resource.

The fishery of the future must be internationally competitive. The vast bulk of our fishery resource product is sold overseas. We must continue to focus on quality. We must continue to pay more attention to stability of supply, ensuring a competitive price.

The final principle that I will put forward of this government's sustainable fisheries policy is that the fishery must be self-reliant. Fishermen must continue to work with us as partners in management, not as adversaries, as marked the situation when the hon. member was the provincial minister of fisheries for Newfoundland and Labrador.

That adversarial relationship is another aspect of the fishery which we inherited from the very party which has put forward this motion in the House today. Those members should rise in the House and explain how they allowed the fishery to deteriorate to the state it did.

The Fisheries Council of Canada has said that fact that the groundfish stocks collapsed to such an extent should serve as a warning that the fishery of the future should not mirror the fishery of the past. The warning is clear.

On the day I was appointed Minister of Fisheries and Oceans I declared conservation to be my major goal and it will remain so. It means that when I take a tough decision, as I did in Newfoundland on the recent food fishery decision, I will not be put off course by complaints from opposition members. A Conservative member, a colleague, a former member of the legislature, headed up an organization simply to oppose me on that science based decision of the food fishery.

Let me quickly turn to the west coast. I have no apology to make with respect to the west coast. The policy we have followed is to get the best deal we can for British Columbia fishermen.

The hon. member was making some rather foolish remarks about the west coast fishery. We have learned the lessons from the east coast fishery and we are applying fleet reduction on the west coast fishery. We are reducing the number of fishermen. We are introducing area licensing so that we can avoid the problems that have plagued the east coast fishery over the years.

I have here the list of targets and achieved targets. For example, area 23 in Barkley Sound, the sockeye return has reached 260,000 fish. The escapement target is expected to be achieved. In area B, the south coast seine, the catch of 3.6 million sockeye toward an allocation of 3.8 million, only 200,000 out and the fishery was continuing. In the same area 2.7 million pinks have been harvested out of an allocation of 2.5 million. In other words, we were over .2 on the pinks and under .2 on the sockeye.

In Area D, allocation is very closed to being achieved. In Area E, which the Fraser River, Juan de Fuca, an allocation of 1.4 million sockeye has been achieved. In Area F allocation has been achieved. In Area G the fishery closed September 21 with an estimate catch of 1.307 million sockeye toward an allocation of 1.377 million. We were under by 70,000 in that fishery. In area H a catch of 713,000 sockeye was recorded against an allocation of 688,000. We are over again there. We are meeting targets. We are meeting the allocation levels despite the difficulty of marine forecasting.

I suggest to the member that he pay particular attention to what is taking place on the west coast. I would also like to point out that when it comes to dealing with Americans we have followed the policy of making sure that we worked with the measures that have the best chance of achieving the best deal for our west coast fishermen.

It is easy to attack the Americans roundly by such measures as the blockade of a ferry. That is easy to do. What it does not do is achieve the results for west coast fishermen. The member knows because of his experience that if we are to have an international area of fishery such as the west coast of North America and the northeast Pacific, the United States and Canada must work together. He knows that.

Last week the premier of the province recognized that and after all his months of complaining and criticizing that we kept contact with the Americans and discussed this with the Americans, he has now reversed himself and said that we did not discuss it enough. We did not have enough contact with them.

Even the premier of B.C. has made a 180 degree change of direction, done his somersault. The only person who is left out there preaching the concept that we should continue to attack the Americans is none other than the hon. critic of the Conservative party.

We have adopted the measures that are most likely to achieve success. I want that understood. I would be happy to answer any questions he may have.

[Philip Mayfield, Reform, Cariboo—Chilcotin, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I am gratified to hear the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans talking about erring on the side of caution and of his concern for conservation. I share those goals very much.

I would like to ask the minister two or three questions in that regard.

I live in an area on the upper Fraser River. Not much fishing takes place there, but a lot of fish spawn there. There have been a lot of problems in that area for a good period of time. For example, why was a young rancher charged with disrupting a fish habitat when he cleared out a beaver dam to make stale, stagnant water fresh so that the fish could live there again? Why was another person who wished to rescue young fry from the back waters that had begun to dry up told he could be charged if those fish were rescued and put into an environment where they could live instead of becoming bird food? That person was told it was simply nature's way and the birds need food too.

The real questions I want to ask are with regard to the Likely hatchery. That hatchery was cut back from a production of about two million fish to about 200,000 fish and then shut down because it was uneconomic. Now local volunteers are raising about $1,500 a month to feed the fish that they strip and put into spawning channels and care for throughout the year. Why will there be no assistance to these people in the conservation of the chinook salmon?

This fall the spawning channels in the Horsefly River have been left closed so that the sockeye salmon cannot spawn there. These salmon are destroying the natural spawning of the riverbed because there is no room for them. Yet these spawning channels have remained closed. It is a large run this year and the devastation of that fish stock is evident to everyone who has been there.

The people of Cariboo—Chilcotin hold the conservation of these fish stocks to be a very high priority. Yet we have had no co-operation from the Conservative government, from Mr. Tobin when he was the minister and now from this minister.

I would like the minister to answer these questions on the basis of his concern for caution and conservation.