Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure to participate today in debate on Bill C-302, an act to establish the rights of fishers.
I listened with great interest to the hon. member who just concluded. How can anyone stand in his or her place and be against involving fishers or fishermen in stock assessment, fish conservation, the setting of fish quotas and fishing licences? How can anyone be against that consultation and involvement process?
As well I listened with interest to the hon. member for Miramichi when he talked about a fish bill of rights. I could not help but wonder, as the member made that suggestion, if he had consulted with the fish and what response he got back. I wonder if the fish are positive to his view that there should be a fish bill of rights.
I say that in a light manner because what we are talking about in Bill C-302 is involving those people directly in the harvesting of fish, in stock assessments, in licensing and in the setting of quotas and so on. As my my hon. colleague who spoke before me said, for years in Atlantic Canada people involved in the fishing industry, the harvesters, warned the federal governments of the day that we were heading for a crisis in our groundfish stock, particularly our cod stocks. Year after year the federal government ignored those people, and we all know the consequences now.
Hundreds of our rural communities are on the verge of extinction. There is no employment in those communities because there is no fish to harvest and consequently no fish to process.
I commend my colleague for bringing forward this fishers bill of rights. It is a step in the right direction.
I want to speak for a moment about the public right to fish. My hon. colleague who spoke just before me mentioned what we call the food fishery in Newfoundland and Labrador. He talked about five fish a day and so many people in a boat.
In Newfoundland and Labrador for all of our lives we have been allowed to go out and catch a fish for supper. That has all changed in the last four or five years. We cannot get in our boats and go out and fish any more. We have to wait for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to inform us if he is going to allow us to catch a fish and then he sets the date. Over the last couple of years he has given us one weekend to fish. He basically has given us three days to fish for our food fishery.
Nova Scotia, P.E.I, New Brunswick and parts of Quebec get a 68-day food fishery. We get three days. It is something we were allowed to do all of our lives, and now we can only fish if the minister allows us to fish and for a maximum of three days. That is very difficult for Newfoundlanders and Labradorians to accept. We are catching the same fish that the people in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Quebec are catching. They are the same fish stocks. They swim back and forth. These are the fish that Nova Scotians catch, and we catch and so on. Somehow the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans and his parliamentary secretary, who I see shaking his head in disapproval, do not understand that fish swim.
Why should we not be allowed to fish for 68 days for a food fishery. If the parliamentary secretary can fish for 68 days in Prince Edward Island, why can we not do it? It is the same fish. What he is allowing people in Nova Scotia to fish for 68 days is the same fish stock we can fish for three days.
If only some of them over there knew a little bit about fish, what a relief it would be.