Mr. Speaker, having been involved in recreation in Quebec for a number of years, I have always been interested in any project involving nature conservation.
I also spent seven years as an assistant to former Quebec fisheries minister Garon, and I have clear memories of his battles with his counterparts, including Mr. De Bané, who has since been appointed to the Senate. At that same time, someone who subsequently became Governor General was involved in epic struggles while discussing ownership and jurisdiction issues in relation to the ocean floor, river bed and waterways.
The member for Ottawa—Vanier did not seem to understand the opposition expressed by the member for Rimouski—Mitis with regard to Bill C-48. I will just say to him that we have good reason to get cold feet, and it is not even a play on words when we are talking about the St. Lawrence and the Atlantic because the water there has always been and will continue to be cold. The federal government has forced us to become more and more distrustful in these areas.
Just consider the fact that three different departments are involved in marine areas. In this bill, the Minister of Canadian Heritage talks about marine conservation areas. We also have marine protected areas that fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and marine reserves that fall under the jurisdiction of the Department of the Environment.
Marine areas, marine protected areas and marine reserves, which come under three different federal departments. They all have lofty goals, but it all depends on the attitude and the intent. The member for Ottawa—Vanier said a few moments ago that the Liberals brought forward this legislation to give the federal government some authority over marine areas, but they do not intend to intervene as they did in Mirabel and Forillon Park, for example. We know where that lead to in some cases in Quebec and elsewhere, particularly in the maritimes.
When the federal government interferes in a particular area, it does so forcefully as if it were the superior government in Canada, whereas in the initial spirit of Confederation, the federal government was supposed to harmonize its policies with those of the provinces. At that time, it was not seen as a superior government that gave orders to other governments, but rather as a government that wanted to work with them.
I spoke earlier with the member for Chicoutimi about how we recently witnessed a good example of partnership. Two levels of government worked together toward the same goal, namely the conservation and protection of marine wildlife and of the shores, since one has to go by land to get to a marine area. That partnership led to the creation of the Saguenay—St. Lawrence marine park in 1997.
The mistrust on this side is based on the federal government's past behaviour. Give them a foot, they will take a yard. That is part of the problem.
The hon. member for Ottawa—Vanier said earlier “We will usually focus on land owned by the federal government or squarely under federal jurisdiction”. It would be hard to prevent it from doing so. However, jurisdiction over several areas is being disputed, mostly by the federal government, but also by provinces that wish to protect their territory from invasion. Section 92 of the Constitution clearly stipulates that the bottom of the river and other waterways are a provincial area of jurisdiction.
All the governments in Quebec, whether they were led by federalists or sovereignists, took the same position and said “We will not let our jurisdiction be infringed upon unchallenged”. Although, in this case, the goal is laudable, and we do support conservation, too often the federal government has taken this kind of opportunity to infringe upon provincial areas of jurisdiction, especially those of Quebec.
What good is a statement of good intentions from a member who is not yet a minister, who represents a minister at some committee, and tells the House that they have no intention of doing that. Really. It is so easy for the government to make such statements and then try to pull a fast one on us. In Quebec we are very sceptical about this.
I believe the government should start its consultations all over again. I was not a member of the committee. The member for Rimouski—Mitis is more familiar with this issue since she is the Bloc critic in this area. She told us about the kind of consultations that took place. When only 5% of those invited to the consultation show up, when only 60 out of the 300 pages in the report are handed out, one has to wonder. From what we could see, there were very few witnesses from Quebec. There are very few submissions in French.
The bill is premature, improvised or badly put together. It leaves too much room for interpretation and legal challenge.
Nothing in this bill tells us the federal government is going to abide by the good intentions mentioned by the member for Ottawa—Vanier. This is simply not enough for us, in the House. Words are quick and vain, we will need to get that in writing. Laws remain and we know they are followed by regulations that clarify them. This is often how we can be had.
At second reading stage, I too would like to say that we oppose the bill. We believe it is one more federal threat against Quebec. It is aimed at encroaching on Quebec's territory. As Quebeckers, we cannot allow it.