Madam Speaker, I am pleased to stand today on behalf of our critic in this area and express the position of the NDP caucus on Bill C-48.
We are glad to say that we can support Bill C-48 in principle. We look forward to further debate on this matter because there are reservations we have that we would like to share with the House today.
In terms of background we recognize the bill provides legislation to establish and manage a system of national marine conservation areas representative of 29 marine areas in Canada.
The 29 NMCAs represent unique biological and oceanographic features and include both fresh and salt water areas. A Parks Canada system approach has identified the 29 national marine conservation areas within Canada's Great Lakes and the territorial sea and exclusive economic zones, the EEZ 200 mile limit zones.
NMCAs are not parks as such in the usual definition. They are conservation and stewardship areas. These NMCAs are fundamentally different from what we would term terrestrial parks. Terrestrial parks are usually associated with a semi-closed ecosystem and are essentially fixed in space and time and are subject to change over relatively long periods of time. We would argue this type of ecosystem would require a completely different style of management as compared to the national marine conservation areas.
Marine protected areas are associated with an open ecosystem and are large and dynamic. The very nature of their oceanographic base is dynamic, moving, fluid and where rates of change to the ecosystem can occur over a relatively short time span.
Pollution impacts have to be have special consideration when we are dealing with so sensitive an ecosystem that is vulnerable to these quick changes. Over-exploitation of our resources is another huge concern, in layman's terms overfishing. These are examples of why national marine conservation areas need special attention above and beyond that which we give our other parks system.
Another key difference between terrestrial parks and marine areas is the science and knowledge gap between the two.
We know relatively little about our oceans and the ecosystems of our marine areas. This came to light for me when I built a house for a marine biologist and we were talking about what he did for a living. He said he worked full time, year round, studying the aging of groundfish. I thought this was remarkable because he was studying when the best time to harvest groundfish would be and when did they reach their maximum size and when did they reproduce.
What really shocked me when talking to this mathematician was we did not know that type of thing. We were in the mid-1970s and we were just starting to study the ageing of groundfish which is a key primary industry.
A difference between the current parks system or terrestrial parks system and the national marine conservation areas is that we know very little about this ecosystem. It takes a great deal of sensitivity if we are to learn from these areas and their natural habitat without interference and development getting in the way of that knowledge.
The process to establish these national marine conservation areas began in 1986 with ministerial approval to establish national marine parks.
This decision lead to a 1987 agreement with Ontario to establish Fathom Five in Georgian Bay and further to a 1988 agreement with British Columbia for a marine park in South Moresby in the Queen Charlotte Islands, the Gwaii Haanas marine conservation reserve, and with Quebec to examine the feasibility of a federal-provincial marine park at the confluence of the Saguenay fiord and the St. Lawrence Seaway, the Saguenay—St. Lawrence marine park. Bill C-7 entertained this creation which received NDP support and royal assent in 1987. The act came into force on June 8, 1998.
In 1995 Canada and British Columbia signed a memorandum of understanding for a shared Pacific marine heritage legacy. In early 1997 a federal-provincial memorandum of understanding was signed initiating feasibility studies for marine conservation areas in the Buena Vista—Notre Dame Bay areas of Newfoundland and the Thunder Cape of the Slate Islands area of western Lake Superior.
Similar to the successful Saguenay—St. Lawrence project public consultations in local communities in both regions are progressing and public advisory committees are being established.
On completion of the feasibility and the consultation studies leading to established agreements, a total of four marine conservation areas and reserves would be established and six of the twenty-nine marine regions would be represented.
At the international level efforts to develop national and global representative systems of marine protected areas have been underway since the fourth world wilderness congress of 1987.
In 1992 the international union for the conservation of nature, the UCN, tabled detailed guidelines on marine protected areas at the fourth world congress of national parks and protected areas. The Prime Minister committed to new marine conservation areas legislation at the IUCN world conservation congress of October 1996.
We have mixed feelings about the details regarding the legislation and this is why our support at this time is limited or rather guarded. We are pleased that Bill C-48 will provide the powers, authorities and procedures required to establish and administer a system of marine conservation areas and that protection and conservation are fundamental specific stipulations on management and used to ensure ecosystems remain intact. There is clear reference to the ecosystem and precautionary approach which has been a key NDP concern in previous bills and acts.
There are many aspects to Bill C-48 that we find beneficial, many of which are written in such a way that they are very hard to share. We do have some reservations and concerns, however, with Bill C-48.
One of these concerns is that the department of fisheries will have the exclusive jurisdiction on fisheries management concerns. We feel that with the creation of these national marine conservation areas we need a special consideration of the resources that ply these waters and we wish it were other than DFO that had input into how these ecosystems are studied and managed.
The minimum protection standards have been expanded to include prohibition of fin fish aquaculture, bottom trawling, ballast water dumping, intentional introduction of alien species, outfalls, waste discharge, recreational artificial reefs and dredging provisions. We would have liked to see all these things limited with more specific limitations on them in Bill C-48. If we have a national marine conservation area, all these things will have an impact on the ecosystem and will limit our ability to benefit from the intelligence we can glean from studying these areas.
The allocation of sufficient resources for scientific study is not dealt with firmly in Bill C-48. We wish it were much more binding and that it contemplated stable funding for the study of the ecosystems we will be looking after within these conservation areas. I made reference to a scientist I knew who worked at the Nanaimo biological research station off the west coast of British Columbia.
Very little of the important research that needs to be done in order that we may really know our ecosystem and our fisheries is being done in the retail commercial market of fisheries under DFO. We feel that having these national marine conservation areas would be a huge benefit in terms of having protected areas free of industrial development and hopefully as free as possible from industrial waste. It is an ideal opportunity to truly study issues like the ageing of groundfish and the impact of species, et cetera, in the wonderful ecosystem we would have as our laboratory.
There has been extremely slow progress in establishing the NMCAs. We encourage government to move swiftly in this for the 29 identified areas.