moved that Bill C-27, an act to amend the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act and the Canada Shipping Act to enable Canada to implement the agreement for the implementation of the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea of 10 December 1982 relating to the conservation and management of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory fish stocks and other international fisheries treaties or arrangements, be read the second time and referred to a committee.
Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to rise in support of this bill which paves the way for Canadian ratification of the United Nations fisheries agreement. You have given its full title so I will not repeat it but will simply refer to it as the UN fisheries agreement.
The bill amends the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act and the Canada Shipping Act to enable Canada to implement certain provisions of the UN agreement. I cannot overemphasize the importance of this United Nations fisheries agreement and what it can accomplish in the cause of conservation of fish stocks for this generation and for future generations.
I begin my remarks by briefly outlining the background of the agreement and what it means to Canadians. I will elaborate on these points in greater detail but I would like to start with the overall picture.
The UN fisheries agreement was concluded in August 1995 at a UN conference arranged to discuss problems of conserving and managing straddling stocks and highly migratory species. The agreement was ready for signing in New York on December 4, 1995.
Straddling stocks migrate for much of their life cycle beyond the jurisdiction of the coastal states and in the high seas where they may be found on either side of the 200-mile limit. Highly migratory species migrate in high seas and in the marine areas of coastal states. Both types of stocks have been overfished in the high seas.
The problems with the straddling stocks occur in several areas of the world: on New Zealand's Challenger plateau, along Argentina's Patagonian shelf, along the coast of Chile and Peru, in the Barents Sea, along the Norwegian coast, in the heart of the Bering Strait, in the Sea of Okhostk and, as the hon. members are well aware, along the Grand Banks of Newfoundland outside Canada's 200-mile fishing limit.
What have been the effects of this unregulated fishing? The Food and Agriculture Organization told the grim story in its 1995 report “The State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture”. I quote from that report:
In 1989 world fish production reached a peak of 100.3 million tonnes. Marine catches subsequently declined as a result of significant overexploitation. About 70% of the world's marine fish stocks are fully to heavily exploited, overexploited, depleted or slowly recovering.
The Food and Agriculture Organization report identifies key causes of this global depletion of fish stocks. One is fishing industry overcapacity and the provision of subsidies to ensure continued operation of vessels. Another cause is the failure to take the precautionary approach to resource management. A third cause the FAO cites is inadequate control of fishing activity, resulting in widespread overfishing contrary to conservation measures.
Overfishing by foreign vessels outside 200 miles has been a major factor in declines in northwest Atlantic straddling groundfish stocks of cod, flounder and turbot. These declines have devastated hundreds of Canadian coastal communities. They have left more than 30,000 fish harvesters and fish plant workers unemployed in our Atlantic Canada region.
The 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allowed coastal states, that is, states which border on the oceans, exclusive rights to control fisheries within 200 nautical miles or 370 kilometres of their shores.
However, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea does not specify what the states' legal rights and obligations are regarding straddling and highly migratory fish stocks in high seas. The new fisheries agreement fills this gap left in the Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Canada played a leading role at the conference on straddling and highly migratory fish stocks, which resulted in the UN fisheries agreement, and in the lengthy negotiations that led to it.
The agreement will come into force once the required 30 states have ratified it. These states will therefore help develop a new legal framework for high sea fisheries. This framework will ensure effective regulatory control and enforcement to protect straddling and highly migratory fish stocks in high seas.
When it is fully implemented, the United Nations fisheries agreement will provide a significant deterrent to unauthorized fishing of straddling stocks on the high seas. The parties to the agreement will have to comply with management measures made by regional fisheries conservation organizations such as NAFO, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization.
The agreement will give coastal states such as Canada the power to take action outside 200 miles if the flag state is unable to control its vessels. The flag state is a state that licenses the vessel to fish.
Finally the UNFA will also provide for binding and compulsory settlement of fishing disputes among states. The UNFA is good news not only for Canada but for the whole world. Overfishing of these straddling stocks on the high seas deprives coastal states of legitimate catches and threatens the viability of this critical food source for future generations.
A word on the history of Canadian involvement. Canada can take great pride and a great deal of credit for this United Nations fisheries agreement. It is important that we understand the tremendous Canadian effort and the Canadian involvement in bringing us to where we are now. By recalling this effort, I also want to show how important it is that Canada continue its international effort. I also want to show how crucial it is that we show an example to the world by the way we manage our own fisheries.
Canada signed the United Nations fisheries agreement along with 26 other states on December 4, 1993. Fifty-nine other states have also signed. Seventeen, among them the United States, Russia, Norway and Iceland, have now ratified the agreement.
The UN fisheries agreement strengthens and supplements the high seas fisheries provisions of the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It does so through specific rules designed to ensure the long term conservation and sustainable use of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks.
Hon. members are well aware of the depleted state of our straddling Atlantic groundfish stocks. It was not always so. For almost 500 years fishers harvested from a seemingly limitless bounty of cod in the waters of the Grand Banks. From the earliest settlement of Canada, in fact even before, commercial fishing provided the economic base for many in the area in question. Cod and other groundfish stocks were once abundant but by the mid-1960s and in particular by the mid-1980s they declined sharply due to excessive fishing by both foreign and domestic fleets.
I would like to say a few words about the 200 mile limit and NAFO.
In 1977, new developments at the UN Conference on the Law of the Sea prompted Canada to declare a 200-mile exclusive fishing zone and to exercise strict control over this zone.
Canada was not the only state to take such action. Other coastal states also declared a 200-mile limit. In most cases, all major ocean resources were within national jurisdiction, but not in Canada.
The Canadian 200-mile zone does not include the Grand Banks southeast of Newfoundland. Approximately 10% of the area known as the nose and tail of the banks is outside the Canadian 200-mile limit. Important groundfish stocks like cod, sole, halibut and perch straddle this limit and have been harvested commercially in international waters outside Canadian jurisdiction.
In 1977, we drew a line in the ocean, but straddling stocks do not see it and do not stay within that line.
In 1979, the responsibility for conservation of fish stocks in the Northwest Atlantic outside Canada's 200-mile limit was given to NAFO, the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization.
NAFO now has 17 contracting parties: Bulgaria, Canada, Cuba, Denmark for the Faroe Islands and Greenland, Estonia, France on behalf of St. Pierre and Miquelon, Iceland, Japan, Korea, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, the European Union, and the United States of America.
NAFO's responsibilities include straddling stocks on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks and other fish stocks on the Flemish Cap, a part of Canada's continental shelf which lies outside our 200 mile limit.
In 1982 another breakthrough for conservation occurred when the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was signed. Even though that convention did not come into force until 1994, some 12 years later, its fisheries provisions have been considered customary international law. I would like to cite two important articles of that convention.
Article 118 provides that states must co-operate in the conservation and management of the living resources of the high seas and use regional organizations such as NAFO to work toward that United Nations goal. Article 119 requires all states to work together to maintain or restore populations of harvested species at levels capable of producing the maximum sustainable yield.
The creation of NAFO and the signing of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea did not save our straddling stocks. As is well known, in the mid-1980s the European Community used the objection procedure in the NAFO convention so as not to be bound by the quotas established for NAFO stocks. The European Community catches were far above the quotas set by NAFO.
Then another problem arose. Vessels from states that were not members of NAFO, including Panama, the United States and Korea, began to fish in the NAFO area despite having no quotas.
At that time we began a major Canadian conservation campaign. In 1989 scientific evidence showed that there was a serious decline in fish stocks in areas where overfishing had been prevalent. Canada launched a comprehensive campaign at home and abroad aimed at ending overfishing by foreign vessels in the northwest Atlantic Ocean.
In 1990 Canada hosted the St. John's Conference on High Seas Fishing. There, experts from key coastal states joined together to launch a new initiative to develop more effective rules for high seas fisheries.
In 1991 in another advance for conservation the European Community adopted most NAFO quotas for the following year, 1992.
In May 1991 in Santiago, Chile, another significant step was taken in the quest for effective controls in the high seas fisheries. A meeting of experts was held on high seas conservation around the world. At that meeting three countries, Chile, New Zealand and Canada, developed a text of principles and measures based on the conclusions reached at the St. John's conference. The text of principles and measures became known as the “Santiago text”.
In 1991 NAFO began discussions on improving surveillance and control in the regulatory area and eliminating non-NAFO fishing. Steps were taken by the European Community and other NAFO members to improve surveillance and control and to stop fishing by non-members. A European Community fisheries patrol vessel was assigned to the NAFO regulatory area for seven months of the year.
In 1992 the European Community took stronger steps to control fishing by vessels of its member states. The European Community patrol vessel was to be in the NAFO area for 10 months of the year. The European Community fisheries were closed when NAFO quotas were reached. Canadian surveillance and inspection confirmed that the European Community had complied with the closure and the NAFO fishing rules.
At its 1992 meeting NAFO unanimously accepted a ban on fishing for northern cod outside Canada's 200 mile limit for the following year 1993. NAFO also decided on improvements to the surveillance and control systems, improvements that were to go into effect for the 1993 season. The European Community agreed to all NAFO conservation decisions made at that 1992 NAFO annual meeting.
It was also in 1992 that the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development was held. During that conference, better known as the UNCED conference or Earth Summit, Canada got global support to organize an intergovernmental conference on high seas fisheries management, including that of straddling and highly migratory stocks.
During the long negotiations that led to Rio's Earth Summit, Canada took the lead in drafting the initial UNCED text on the problems associated with high seas fisheries. That document was eventually incorporated in the chapter on oceans adopted by the UNCED conference. That draft document basically included the Santiago text, to which I just referred.
UNCED participants had to deal with various issues and submit a series of non-binding recommendations. For these reasons, coastal states concluded that UNCED's recommendations should include the holding of a UN conference exclusively on the conservation and management of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks.
Also in 1992 as a result of strong pressure applied by Canada, the republic of Korea agreed to withdraw three of the six vessels it had in the NAFO regulatory area by April 1993 and to phase out the use of Korean crews on third country vessels which were operating in the NAFO area. Korea withdrew its vessels from the NAFO regulatory area at the end of April 1993 and became a contracting party of NAFO in the following year.
As a result of continued diplomatic pressure applied by Canada, Panama also agreed to impose sanctions on Panamanian vessels that violated conservation measures of NAFO. Those actions included fines and removal from the registry.
In May 1994 Canada became the first nation to become party to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization's compliance agreement regulating high seas fishing. Parties to that agreement must control high seas fishing by vessels flying their flags to ensure they do not undermine conservation decisions of international or regional fisheries management organizations such as NAFO.
Canada had participated actively in negotiating the FAO agreement. The agreement required acceptance by 25 nations to come into force. So far, 10 acceptances have been received.
It was also in May 1994 that Canada took another powerful step for conservation. Parliament passed new legislation. The amendments to the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act introduced as Bill C-29 enabled Canada to take action against stateless vessels and vessels flying flags of convenience outside the 200 mile limit.
The law had an immediate impact on all such vessels clearing off the nose and tail of the Grand Banks. Bill C-29 constitutes an effective deterrent to the return of these flag of convenience fishing vessels to the nose and tail.
One serious conservation issue remained, Greenland halibut or turbot which was not a stock initially managed by NAFO quotas. The Greenland halibut had been fished entirely in Canadian waters until the late 1980s. Then when other major groundfish stocks declined, the Greenland halibut became the object of a large scale foreign fishery outside 200 miles primarily by Spanish vessels. Abetting this development was the fact that more of the Greenland halibut stock had moved out of Canadian waters.
In February 1994, Canadian researchers surveyed Greenland halibut stocks along the Labrador coast and eastern Newfoundland. Their findings were surprising. The biomass had decreased by no less than two-thirds since 1991.
A still greater reduction was detected in the number of large fish. Their findings indicated as well that the population included a higher proportion of young fish, three or four years old. If they were to contribute to increasing the stocks, these had to be left to age and reproduce. Greenland halibut cannot reproduce before they are at least ten years old.
In June 1994, the NAFO Scientific Council re-examined the Greenland halibut situation, and warned that deep-sea fishing levels in all of the sub-zones were in excess of what stocks could sustain.
Canada immediately responded by reducing its domestic quota off Baffin Island, which is in division O of the NAFO charts, by more than half and by terminating a fisheries development program in area 2GH which is the area off the coast of Labrador. Canada also substantially reduced its quotas for divisions 2 and 3 and limited access to harvesters who had fished in those areas.
At its annual meeting in September 1994, NAFO agreed for the first time to establish a total allowable catch for Greenland halibut. That total allowable catch of 27,000 tonnes was a significant reduction from annual catches of more than 60,000 tonnes in previous years when NAFO had not set a total allowable catch for the stock.
I now come to the 1995 turbot dispute. At a special meeting held from January 30 to February 1, 1995—