Debates of March 25th, 1999

Coastal Fisheries Protection Act

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Continue.

[Yvan Bernier, Bloc, Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-De-La-Madeleine—Pabok, QC]

Since I am told I may continue to speak, I will address the criterion of relative stability.

I would like the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to use the meeting to be held in Quebec City after the parliamentary Easter break to ask his provincial colleagues what they think of the criterion of relative stability. Then we could total the factors the various ministers might take into account to establish the stability criterion.

I think traditional share should be a factor, and the proximity of the resource.

My final point concerns the problem of new species, new fisheries. I think this should be addressed urgently.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Before I recognize the member for Vancouver Quadra, I want to clarify that we are debating all of the amendments before the House. It is quite legitimate for anyone to speak to any of the amendments before the House.

[Yvan Bernier, Bloc, Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-De-La-Madeleine—Pabok, QC]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order.

I appreciate that the government members can talk about any group they want, but I want to make sure that I will be allowed to speak to the other groups. Usually, a member can speak only once to a group of motions.

If I understand my sheet, I should be able to rise another three times. For example, if certain members have to leave and if one wants to speak to the fourth group before the first, I have no objection, but on the condition that I may return to speak to the three other groups.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The order made earlier today indicates that all groupings are on the floor. Having said that, I understand that the critics very often have specific interventions on specific groups. I will seek further clarification on the member's specific concern. However, given the circumstances, the member would find that the Chair and the House are favourably disposed, through consent, but we cannot count on it. I will get a specific ruling on that intervention before we proceed.

We have a technical glitch. All of the amendments are before the House to accommodate some members who are not able to be here for all stages of this debate. However, the critic for the Bloc has to speak to each of the preordained groupings. May we have the unanimous consent of the House to afford the critic for each party or a representative from each party to speak to the groupings, even though all are before the House at this time?

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, we have no problem with that, as long as that includes the critic for each party and the parliamentary secretary on this side.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I would hope that if we give unanimous consent it would include all of the members of the committee, all of the critics who sit on that particular committee and the official opposition party as well. Could that be included?

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

Please give us a second to sort this out. I think that the Chair understands the mood of the House in what we are trying to achieve. We need to make sure that we can do this technically.

The Clerk has brought to my attention the fact that the only member who was compromised by the fact that I did not indicate that all motions are before the House is the hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok, the critic for the Bloc. Would it be the pleasure of the House to provide for the member to intervene a second time on the motions as they are presented? Everyone else has the option.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I understand what the member from Gaspé is trying to do and I agree with his intent. However he will have an opportunity to come back and speak again.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

That is exactly the problem. Under the rules the Bloc critic does not have the opportunity to speak to the other amendments and was not advised thereof before he spoke for the first time.

I would suggest that the way for us to get around this is to provide for the member from the Bloc to be able to speak to it.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, would not a much simpler solution be to gain unanimous consent to debate each group separately and then we can just move through the groups very quickly. If no one has any comments, then away we go.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We could do that. It is a good point but there is no way that we could necessarily get back to all groups today.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would give consent to giving the member an opportunity to speak again at the end of the rotation, if we have unanimous consent. The member would have an opportunity to speak once more at the end of the rotation. That would resolve it and we could carry on. I make that motion and ask for unanimous consent.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The motion presented by the hon. member for Saanich—Gulf Islands for unanimous consent would be that because the member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok was not aware of the fact that all motions were on the table, that the member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok and only that member be given the last 10 minutes of debate so as to ensure that he does have the opportunity to speak to all of the amendments on the floor.

Just to be clear, the hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok will have one more opportunity to speak for 10 minutes during debate.

Is there unanimous consent?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Yvan Bernier, Bloc, Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-De-La-Madeleine—Pabok, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I want to be sure I understood correctly. I will be allowed to speak again, but will that be after all members in the House have spoken, or when my party comes up again in the rotation? That is my first point.

Second, I understand that the members who speak now will have only 10 minutes to address four groups of motions. If that is what the House wants, I will bow to its wishes, but I think members should understand that 10 minutes for four groups of motions is very little time, since the future of the fishery and the fate of an international treaty are involved.

However, if that is what the House wants, rest assured that when we come back at third reading I would like my speaking time to be longer than any fish ever seen.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

I think the House has been very generous in affording the critic time.

I am sure the House understands the very real interest that all members, but particularly the member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok has in the fisheries. The member may speak during the normal rotation. It would probably be best to speak again in normal rotation. Therefore, resuming debate, the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.

[Ted McWhinney, Liberal, Vancouver Quadra, BC]

Mr. Speaker, first I would like to thank the hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok for his helpful contribution to the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans.

At the time, I was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. The hon. member is an intelligent man and an unfailingly co-operative committee member.

To return to the subject specifically, the kernel of our discussion is of course the 1982 United Nations convention on the law of the sea.

It is worthwhile reminding the House that Canada, with Singapore and Venezuela, in effect was the conscience of this great international law making project. It lasted for 12 years. Alan Beesley who was legal adviser to our foreign ministry, Tommy Koh of Singapore, and Aguilar Mawdsley who later became a judge at the World Court, provided the modernizing ideas on the law of the sea. It is a great credit to their initiatives that this became a convention after 12 long years of negotiation.

We still have not ratified the convention which recently became law with the 60th instrument of ratification and there were reasons for that. It was thought that there were gaps in the treaty which became apparent in the light of subsequent developments.

Those hon. members who were in the previous parliament will remember the problems the minister of fisheries of that period had with flagrant overfishing as we saw it by certain long range European fishing countries just outside Canadian territorial waters. This overfishing contributed to the degradation and ultimately the threat of disappearance of scarce fisheries stocks.

The minister, on excellent and imaginative advice, decided to go ahead anyway. He was right that there was a legal base for the control action we took. It was necessary to go back to the 1958 and 1960 conventions, the first and second United Nations conventions, to get the main philosophical support for what we did.

It will be remembered that Canada was taken to the World Court over this by Spain. In a ruling in December, the World Court upheld Canada's position but on a technical adjectival law issue, not the main substantive issue, of the ability to conserve endangered or diminishing stocks.

In the meantime, to make assurance doubly sure we went ahead with negotiation of supplementary international agreements that would fill the gaps as they had now become apparent in the 1982 convention. These were the 1994 and 1995 UN agreements on straddling and highly migratory fish stocks which are the substance of the United Nations agreements on straddling and highly migratory fish stocks, UNFA as it is referred to. For these treaties to be able to go ahead, in our view we need to supplement what the then minister of fisheries did by divine inspiration and the power of the apple. This is not an instrument of discord, an apple of discord. It is a friendly object in international negotiations.

The minister went ahead and took the action but it would be very important to cross all the t's and dot all the i's and make sure that Canadian internal legislation provides the enforcement powers for the purposes of Canadian internal law that the minister found, correctly, in international law as it then existed before 1982 and as imaginatively reinterpreted to meet new conditions.

That essentially is what this bill is all about. It will tidy up our national law. It will then put us in a position to do what I have asked for at least five or six times in the House over the last several years, to go ahead and finally ratify the 1982 convention on the law of the sea.

This is a convention that Canadians inspired, in very large measure. We gave it the interesting dynamic elements. We did not have the problems that our American friends had. They worried about damage to their internal mining and other interests by the convention's very imaginative provisions on sharing some of the to be expected wealth from ocean depth mining with underdeveloped countries and others under a special United Nations fund and a special United Nations administration. We did not have these fears.

We did have this feeling and commitment to environmental protection, the special concern that Canadians have had for protecting endangered species and species in danger of extinction as we have seen both on the east coast and the west coast. On the east coast it is Europeans and on the west coast we feel it is sometimes internal states within the American system that do not respect the United States treaty obligations under international law and on the west coast, the 1985 Canada-U.S. Pacific salmon treaty.

This is a measure to tidy up our law. It will remove the objections that some have made to our ratifying the 1982 convention. Immediately after the adoption of this law, it will enable us to do everything to present a 200% perfect legal case on which the then minister of fisheries in 1994-95, with great imagination and that special gift of poetry that Newfoundlanders and I suppose people from all of Canada's maritime regions have, decided to go ahead. He cited the duty of protecting endangered species, the notion that it is one world of scarce resources. One country diminished by unnecessary illegal acts in terms of general international law damages all the world community.

It is a very constructive piece of legislation. We welcome the contributions that have been made from all parts of the House in support of the measures conveyed in this. It is my great pleasure to endorse the legislation, to urge its support and to thank members from all parties in the fisheries committee and in other arenas for the support they have given these general principles.

We are a law-abiding country. We support international law, not international law narrowly construed, but international law captured in its full spirit and with an eye to emerging needs. It is not simply a static re-statement of the old in relation to old problems. It is capturing the new problems and finding creative solutions for them.

I am assured by the former minister of fisheries and the fisheries minister that this will enable us to proceed to ratification of the 1982 convention.

[Gary Lunn, Reform, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we agree with the intent of this legislation. It is obviously trying to implement the UN fisheries agreement which was negotiated in 1995 and also the UN convention on the law of the sea of December 1982, some 15 years ago.

There is one very troubling clause, and that is clause 4 which will change section 7.01. This is with respect to enforcement on the high seas for unauthorized fishing vessels in Canadian waters. We have foreign vessels fishing inside of Canadian waters, in a NAFTA regulatory area. I will read it word for word:

If a protection officer believes on reasonable grounds that a fishing vessel of a participating state or of a state party to a treaty or an arrangement described in paragraph 6(f) has engaged in unauthorized fishing in Canadian fisheries waters and the officer finds the vessel in an area of the sea designated under subparagraph 6(e)(ii) or (f)(ii), the officer may, with the consent of that state, take any enforcement action—

It completely nullifies this entire agreement. It waters down our existing provisions. If we have a foreign vessel fishing in our waters illegally in the NAFTA regulatory area, before we can proceed with enforcement action we must get the consent of the flag state. They will argue that that has to be in there because it is part of the UN fisheries agreement.

Let me go back to the enabling legislation, Bill C-96, which was introduced by the former fisheries minister back in April 1997. He introduced the enabling legislation for the same UN agreement. This is the enforcement section which he intended:

A protection officer may, subject to any regulations made under subparagraph 6(e)(iii), arrest without warrant any person who the officer suspects on reasonable grounds has committed an offence under this act.

That is our difficulty. This makes it meaningless. It waters down our position. In fact the Premier of Newfoundland, Mr. Tobin, has written letters to the committee with respect to this very issue. His concern is why we would water down our current position.

We have amendments which would correct that and we would ask the government to look at them. What we are asking under the amendments we put forward is to give the minister the power of consent. In other words, if there is a foreign vessel fishing in our waters in the NAFTA regulatory area, that enforcement could be taken with the minister's consent. We are saying, in these circumstances, let us have a clause that if this exact situation existed enforcement officials would have to contact the department and, with the consent of the minister, they could take enforcement action. Right now they have to go to the flag state.

The member for Vancouver Quadra talked about a very colourful moment. Let me read a paragraph from Michael Harris' book Lament for an Ocean . This takes us back to 1995:

It was the other shot that was heard around the world. The 50-calibre machine-gun burst from the Cape Roger , three in all, marked the first time since Confederation that Canada had fired on another country in defence of the national interest. When the order came to open fire, the officers aboard the fisheries patrol vessel were so taken aback, they asked that the command be repeated. The faithful words crackled once more over the ship's radio: An initial burst was to be fired over the bow of the Spanish trawler Estai , the next rounds into her screw sixty seconds later if she refused to stop.

That was Mr. Tobin who did that. We had illegal fishing. What we ask is that this legislation protect our sovereignty and our interests. The issue we keep coming back to is that we have to get the consent of the flag state. That waters it down.

I have read the provision, word for word. We have to get the consent of the flag state to take enforcement action. What I ask is that we amend that section so that officers on the high seas, with the consent of the minister, can take enforcement action.

That would correct this fundamental flaw in the bill. Again, the intent is worthwhile. But if we correct that fundamental flaw, put that power into the minister's hands in this rare exception, then we could take enforcement measures against foreign vessels.

I want to touch on one other thing. I will be quick because I would like to give a couple of minutes to my friend from Yorkton—Melville.

We have laws for foreign vessels so we can protect our sovereignty, but what is even more troubling is that in British Columbia, in the town of Ucluelet, our government is giving Canadian fish away to foreign nations. Foreign nations are fishing in our waters. This bill does nothing about that issue, even though it was brought up over and over again in an east coast report.

We now have a piece of legislation, an international agreement, with respect to foreign fishing. However, I would encourage our government to really look on both coasts at what foreign nations are doing inside our waters, both on the processing and the fishing side, to ensure that we take action and give fishermen on both coasts priority to this resource. Our fishermen should get first crack. Unemployed fishermen on both coasts do not know how they are going to pay their mortgages or make ends meet, and yet we have foreigners processing our fish and fishing in our waters.

If it is possible, I would like to share the couple of minutes that are left to me with the member for Yorkton—Melville.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

The member for Saanich—Gulf Islands is requesting the unanimous consent of the House to give the member for Yorkton—Melville the last two minutes of his allotted time. Is that agreed?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[Garry Breitkreuz, Reform, Yorkton—Melville, SK]

Mr. Speaker, I was hoping to get this time at the beginning of the debate to outline for the various members what is happening and how things are going.

As members know, we reverted to orders of the day today. A bill was being debated that had been supported by the majority of MPs in this House. It had been sent to committee where the Liberals and the NDP killed it. That bill was on consecutive sentencing. It was something which nine out of ten Canadians supported.

[The Acting Speaker (Mr. McClelland)]

We are debating report stage of Bill C-27. If the member for Yorkton—Melville does not have words that are germane to that bill, he is out of order.

[Lynn Myers, Liberal, Waterloo—Wellington, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I rise to speak to the first two amendments to Bill C-27 which were proposed by the hon. member for Bonaventure—Gaspé—Îles-de-la-Madeleine—Pabok.

The first proposed amendment is to include in Bill C-27 the general principles of article 5 of the United Nations fisheries agreement. The second, as members know, is to add an interpretation clause to the bill.

I am pleased to be able to contribute to this debate on a sound piece of legislation that clears the way for the ratification of an essential international agreement. The bill amends the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act and the Canada Shipping Act to enable Canada to implement certain provisions of the UN fisheries agreement.

Ratification of this agreement and, more importantly, its full implementation are crucial to the conservation of straddling and highly migratory fish stocks. The agreement will not come into force until 30 nations have ratified it. So far 19 nations have done so, but Canada's name is not yet among them.

It is important that we move forward with the passage of Bill C-27. Once Canada has ratified the agreement we will be in a much stronger position to urge others to do the same.

Canadians across the country, and certainly people in my riding of Waterloo—Wellington, want to see the resources of the sea protected. No one wants to see a repetition of the devastation caused by the collapse of the Atlantic groundfish stocks.

As important as this bill is, the democratic process cannot be hurried. The government has, accordingly, given full consideration to the concerns raised by members of the opposition parties in committee. However, in the case of the first two amendments proposed by the hon. member the government cannot agree.

The first would include in Bill C-27 the general principles of article 5 of the UN fisheries agreement and I would like to first speak to this proposed amendment.

When Canada ratifies the UNFA, which will happen as soon as Bill C-27 is passed and the requisite regulations are made, Canada will be bound by the obligations and the responsibilities provided by that, including the general principles found in article 5 of the UNFA.

Canada pushed for the inclusion of these principles in that agreement during negotiation of the agreement. We used, as a basis for these principles, our Canadian fisheries management policies and practices, and I think that is important to note. Canada, therefore, already has in place scientific and fisheries management policies and practices which implement these principles.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has, for instance, adopted a precautionary approach as a policy objective. I would like to note at this time the obligations for UNFA parties, which include that we adopt measures to ensure long term sustainability of fish stocks, that we ensure the use of best scientific evidence, that we assess the impacts of fishing, that we adopt conservation and management measures, that we minimize pollution, that we take measures to prevent or eliminate overfishing, that we take into account the interests of subsistence fishers, that we collect and share data concerning fishing, that we conduct scientific research and, finally, that we implement and enforce conservation and management measures. Many of these obligations are met through DFO's process of developing integrated fisheries management plans for individual fisheries in our land.

Canada will continue to co-operate with other fishing nations and coastal states, as UNFA provides, in order to implement all those principles through decisions taken within regional fisheries organizations to which Canada is a party, such as NAFO and ICCAT.

As hon. members can see, the first proposed amendment is not necessary as the amendment of the principles contained in the UNFA does not require specific authority in the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act. Canada has been and continues to apply these principles through the application of existing and revised fisheries management policies and practices, and we would on this basis urge the House to vote against this first motion.

I understand that I am out of time. I wonder if I would be allowed to come back later to deal with the second amendment.

[The Speaker]

Yes, the member is not out of time. As a matter of fact, you have about five and a half minutes left.

However, I thought I would intervene now and you can bring your arguments to bear on your second topic as you see fit. You will be recognized when we return to orders of the day.

As it is almost 2 p.m., we will proceed to Statements by Members, and I will recognize the hon. member for Vancouver Quadra.