Mr. Speaker, this is not the first time I have spoken to this bill, although the last time it had a different number attached to it.
The official opposition believes in sustainable development and management of the environment to both preserve biodiversity and conserve the environment for the enjoyment of Canadians at present and in the future.
The heritage minister by this bill simply expands her domain and encroaches on what is more properly the responsibility of the Minister of the Environment, her old portfolio. The minister in this bill sidesteps the proper role of parliament with the insertion of Henry VIII clauses, as we have already heard described today. The bill requires provincial governments to obey it. The bill impinges on provincial jurisdiction in many ways. Enforcement officers may arrest without warrant and enter private property without permission. That is a summation of some of my concerns.
This is a politicized environmental bill and not a useful one to assist the environment. That is the problem with the bill. It will burden us with another layer of government bureaucracy. This will prevent honest fishermen, hardworking oil and gas exploration companies, local anglers and recreational boaters from being able to make a living or enjoy themselves.
The bill will not prevent natural disasters. It will not prevent poachers. It will not prevent the environment from being ruined. Bill C-8 will do none of this.
I attended committee. Reform brought some witnesses to committee. The chief of the Campbell River band was at committee. The North Coast Oil and Gas Task Force was there. West coast fishermen were there. Rather than accept at face value concerns by west coast stakeholders, what did we hear? A lecture from the chairman of the committee. Quite frankly, I was amazed at the treatment meted out to people who had travelled so far.
If this bill proceeds, we will have three federal departments that can protect marine areas: Environment Canada, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and this bill will put Heritage Canada into that picture as well. This is very sloppy indeed and is not the way to proceed. Any time more than one party manages something, we get diffused management, diffused objectives and things tend to fall apart.
I am going to talk about the west coast because I know it best. About half of the British Columbia coastline is in my riding. Obviously it is a busy place. There is aquaculture going on, fishing activity, commercial and recreational, undersea harvesting of different kinds, some of it actively being pursued and others are proposed. There are transportation activities of every kind, tug and barge, marine commercial transportation, ferries, cruise ships, we have the works. We also have a history of oil and gas exploration. I am going to spend some time talking about that.
The oil and gas reserves on the west coast exceed many times, for example, the oil reserves in Hibernia and other areas in Canada, which are currently being exploited quite successfully. At the end of 1998, the Hibernia operation had already provided 107,000 man years of work, a very significant number and one that British Columbians are taking note of.
We should not be pre-empted from an opportunity to fully develop our industry by legislation that blindly creates parks without taking all of these things into account. It is very clear, from the way this bill has been developed, that those things have not been taken into account.
British Columbia is unique. We fought as a province to establish provincial jurisdiction over the Gulf of Georgia, which is salt water and seabed and marine resources that are owned by the province. This legislation would be tantamount to the Nanoose Bay expropriation if it were done without the agreement of the province. That is what the legislation attempts to do.
I have major concerns with the politicization of the protection of marine areas. This bill doe not accomplish anything for the environment. It is only here as a public relations exercise by a department and a minister of the government.
When the legislative package came out, I sent it out to 22 groups that I knew had an interest in this type of legislation and that should have been consulted by government. These groups found they could not comment in any meaningful way on this legislation because they did not know where the marine conservation areas were being proposed. The legislation is not at that stage. By the time it gets to that stage, there will be no parliamentary purview other than some ability to comment on what they can do by order in council without further reference to parliament. That is wrong. We are opposed to it. We know that west coast interests will be overruled because we have already seen the attitude display in this process.
The recreational sector, which will be heavily impacted by anything that comes out of this, has no effective lobby. It is composed primarily of individual anglers. Once enabling legislation is drafted to create these areas and then they are not created, the bureaucracy is uncomfortable because the minister has a mandate.
What we have is a self-perpetuating machine churning out regulations in new areas that have no business existing in the first place. We end up with marine conservation areas with a very weak rationale which flies in the face of common sense and local sentiment. There has to be a better way.
We recommended that the municipal level of governance be put into this legislation in a meaningful way so that it can have a decision making role in whether these specific areas will come into being or not. There have been no changes or movement whatsoever in that regard.
A major concern we have with the bill is its potential to affect offshore oil and gas exploration and industry. We have had a moratorium since 1989 on the west coast. This is supported by a federal moratorium which will be in place until B.C. decides to allow this exploration. In September 1999, in the B.C. northern development commissioner's report, he said:
The report clearly shows that northerners support the development of a process that would reconsider the current oil and gas moratorium.
It appears that British Columbians are very interested in developing these resources. If the federal government proceeds with Bill C-8, British Columbians may be hampered in developing this industry due to the additional restrictions that may be imposed by Bill C-8.
I will conclude by saying that this is a bad piece of legislation and we should kill it.