Mr. Speaker, I will make a few brief remarks with regard to this bill before us which amends the Coastal Fisheries Protection Act and the Canada Shipping Act. I understand the purpose of Bill C-27 is to amend domestic legislation to implement an international agreement on the conservation and long term sustainable use of straddling fish stocks and highly migratory species.
The background of the legislation is interesting. In the first instance the legislation was brought forward in the last parliament by the former fisheries minister, a member from Newfoundland. That was on April 17, 1997. It died on the Order Paper when the election was called.
There is one item among many in the bill that I want to address which causes me some concern. It is the notion that the fisheries enforcement officials are inhibited if they attempt to enforce conservation laws outside Canada's 200 mile limit. The predecessor to this bill, Bill C-96, did not require the express consent of participating states in order for Canadian officials to take enforcement action. In other words, if a foreign vessel was operating in a way that was contrary to Canadian law outside our 200 mile limit, on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks for example, Canadian vessels would have been able to take enforcement action under that bill.
That particular part of the legislation was one that Canadians were quite proud of achieving. I would like to give a little history on how that came about.
I was fortunate enough to attend the UN on two instances when the convention on straddling stocks and migratory species was being discussed. At that time one of the concerns Canadians had was that they would not be able to apprehend a vessel which was in violation of Canadian conservation laws if it was outside the 200 mile limit.
Members will recall the shameful incident of the Minister of Fisheries in the previous government, the current premier of Newfoundland, firing upon an unarmed fishing vessel in the north Atlantic. I say shameful because he was not firing on a military vessel but he was firing on an unarmed vessel which was manned by some poor fishermen from Spain, men who were making just a few thousand dollars for five months work in the north Atlantic in very unpleasant conditions, guys just trying to make a living. Because we did not have some good legislation in place that would allow us to take enforcement actions or compel the people on the Estai to abide by our laws, this action was taken. The action was still inappropriate.
The later action of the former fisheries minister in attempting to sever the net from the vessel was just as inappropriate. He put at risk the lives of people not only on the coast guard vessel involved but also on that fishing vessel. Anybody who has any sense of the inherent danger of operating or working on the ocean knows that you do not play around like that man did.
I think it was shameful. I thought it was shameful at the time, and I still do. I do not want to see it happen again. The act will not prevent that kind of action. It simply will not do it because we have given up the right. How did we give it up?
I mentioned that I had been at the UN when this was being discussed. The Canadian negotiators were absolutely delighted with one item. They got U.S. consent to allow U.S. vessels to be boarded if they were in violation of conservation laws off the shore of any country, outside the 200 mile limit of any country.
The Americans were very reluctant to allow that to happen. They could not abide the thought that some foreign nation would be able to board their vessels and enforce some conservation laws, but they did come to the table and they agreed that they would do that. The pressure came from the non-governmental organizations in the United States. It did not come from the legislators, but from the non-governmental organizations which are concerned about conservation matters.
The Canadian delegation felt that they had achieved a great victory when they got this consent from the Americans. Back in Canada those of us in parliament and on the committee as well as those who are interested felt a great victory had been achieved as well. We felt that if a foreign vessel was operating in a manner that was detrimental to the welfare of fish stocks outside Canada's 200 mile limit on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, Canadian vessels would have the authority to apprehend. They do not have it now, but they would have had that authority.
We know that Canada is not too proud of its actions at the time of the Estai . We know that Canada knows it was operating outside the law. When the Spanish people took that matter to the World Court at The Hague, Canada refused to square off in the courtroom. Canada said no, it was not going. The court's jurisdiction did not apply because Canada would not agree.
We have problems with the Americans. We would like to get the Americans into the court at The Hague and square off with them over the problem of the A/B line in B.C. or over the problem with the salmon, but they will not go. They can always say that as Canada did not go in the case of the Estai , why should the Americans go on this issue when they think they may lose. That is the problem. If we violate international law, it is pretty hard to take the high ground and ask somebody else to abide by it when we will not.
What we needed to do in this bill was to ensure that Canada would have the authority to enforce its conservation laws outside our 200 mile limit when the laws were being broken by a foreign vessel. Without that, this whole thing really is worthless.
In talking about this point and the actions of the premier of Newfoundland up to that point I think Canada was inching slowly toward the notion of not just having control of the seabed on the nose and tail of the Grand Banks, but also the water column. That is important to be able to enforce fisheries laws beyond the 200 mile limit on the nose and tail. Up until the Estai incident, we were making some progress in staking our claim to the water column as well as the seabed. That initiative really has died as a result of the Estai incident and we still suffer.
We see that with this bill the government has backed away from an important concession it got from the Americans, an important concession that it won at the UN in my understanding of it, by not insisting in the bill that we would have the authority to arrest foreign vessels which are violating our conservation laws beyond the 200 mile limit.
I do not think this bill is worth the time we are taking to discuss it. This morning the member for Sydney—Victoria commented about what he referred to as a diversion when we were talking about a private member's bill on consecutive sentencing. He said we were taking away from the debate on an important fisheries bill.
This bill is not important because it is not doing the job. It is not doing the job because this government caved in. To whom I do not know. It caved in on the important concession it had won at the UN, that we would have had the ability to force conservation laws outside our 200 mile limit on the straddling stocks and migratory species. We do not have it in this bill. The bill is not worth wasting time on until we do get it.