Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to stand today to talk about the Marine Conservation Act, Bill C-8, which I think is what is on the table. I appreciate the member's remarks and some of the insight from the Atlantic coast.
On the political rant from the separatists, it is easy to go on a rant and the closer we get to an election it seems all the more simple. It seems to me that right now we should be discussing the Marine Conservation Act.
The member across the way from British Columbia will be well aware of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society, with which I met earlier this morning. It talks about marine protected areas. We are talking about marine conservation areas. I suspect they are pretty much the same, but when we look at semantics we start to try to decide what it is we are actually dealing with.
We as members of the opposition certainly believe in sustainable development and the management of the environment. Anyone in the country would be foolish not to realize the importance of that in this day and age. We simply must do that. We have to be able to preserve biodiversity and conserve the environment for the enjoyment of Canadians, present and future. There are always generations coming along and it gets more and more important for people to be able to enjoy that whether it is in the oceans, in the Great Lakes or on land.
I question the fact that this bill falls under the heritage department. I am not saying that we do not need to look at marine conservation areas. This may well be important, but I question why it is in the heritage portfolio. Bill C-8 appears to fulfil preservationist and environmental objectives instead of the usual objectives for national parks, historical or heritage sites which generally allow relatively free public access. We need to ask just how much free public access will there be to these conservation areas.
Motion No. 5 would therefore rightfully change the minister looking after the bill from the Canadian heritage minister to the fisheries and oceans minister. Some may ask: “What difference would that make? Is it not just a title?” If we look at national parks or marine parks, as the minister wants to change them, we have to look at the bureaucracy attached to that.
Granted, national parks and their agencies certainly do a pretty good job of looking after and administering national parks. It seems to me that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans already looks after some small areas. Granted, they are not as large as the MCAs the minister is wanting to include, but certainly under the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans there are already marine protected areas. If the whole structure is in place it seems to me it would be wise to make use of it and perhaps put it under the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
I could get skeptical or cynical and say that the same minister of heritage was the environment minister before and maybe is trying to encroach on her old area. It could be just some nostalgia to say that it would be important to look at the whole area of the good old days back in environment. I understand the Minister of the Environment would look after, very specifically, seabirds. To enlarge that area it may not be wise to put it under the Minister of the Environment. Certainly I believe the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans would be a great overseer of one of these marine parks.
We also have concern about some clauses in the bill which would allow the government or the minister to circumvent the usual parliamentary process. When we look at the Henry VIII clauses in the bill, the minister would be allowed to designate new areas under the act without having to steer an amending act through parliament. Whether we agree or disagree with it, parliament is the place where these things should be discussed and at least passed so that even if it is a rubber stamp, at least it got stamped. With the Henry VIII clauses where the minister could bring in sweeping new changes and designate new areas, it would not even have to come back to pass the House.
The key Henry VIII clause, clause 7, delegates the authority to object to the creation or expansion of a new marine conservation area or reserve to a standing committee. The whole House must confirm the committee's objection.
Somewhere in this precinct on Parliament Hill today we see that the government has asked if it could strike a couple of committees early, ahead of the scheduled time next week or the week after, to come up with committee chairs. That is all it wants to do today. It just wants to come up with a couple of chairmen for these committees.
Opposition members went in good faith to the couple of committees this morning, finance and immigration, and agreed to allow it to go ahead so a chair could be established, but there would be no business done, the government told us.
We got in there and all of a sudden it was said: “We are just going to look at these couple of bills today”. We can understand why people are nervous. They are told one thing, and when they walk in there in good faith all of a sudden there are surprises. I love surprises but sometimes after I have made a commitment to something I like it to be what I signed on for. Those kind of surprises are never much fun.
Today before noon we have had the very thing happen we are concerned about. We were told one thing and then something absolutely different happened. That causes us great concern.
Schedules 1 and 2 are to describe the lands to be set aside in marine conservation areas and reserves. In other words, with schedules 1 and 2, the government will make sure it designates the lands. It will tell us about it and have a really good conversation so we know everything right upfront, but no lands are described in schedules 1 and 2.
The government is asking us to sign the cheque and it will let us know what they are later. It reminds me of the Charlottetown accord in 1992 where the government was trying to push a document through. Fortunately it put it to a national referendum, and I give the Tories credit for that. I think it changed the way politics will be done in the country because the people had the power.
To be able to say “we will let you know” and designate it, as in the Charlottetown accord when it said “Just give us the go-ahead on this and we will tell you some of the constitutional changes we want to make later”, I would be considered foolish if I went to my truck dealer, gave him my signed cheque and told him to fill in the amount later. You would never do that in your business, Mr. Speaker. Nor should the Canadian public with this. Canadians certainly have concerns about the whole area of these schedules.
Also it gives the minister too much discretionary power and a lack of adequate public consultation. I have had a briefing from Parks Canada and appreciate the fact that a consultative process goes on. I know they have just been through that up in the Lake Superior area, that there have been consultations.
I say that is great. It is a terrific start. However the area that would cause me the very most concern is the whole idea of federal-provincial negotiations. It looks as though the federal government obviously takes precedence over the provincial government. It has just happened too many times and there are too many awkward situations where the federal government has come in and just stamped out the rights or concerns of the provinces.
With discretionary power the minister would be able to just waltz right into the provinces and say “Thanks very much for that 12 minutes of consultation but, sorry, we are going to go ahead and do it our way”. That works for Frank Sinatra but I do not think so for government policy on marine conservation acts.
I want to speak about the whole idea of prohibitions in the bill. We have concerns with the whole aviation area, that the minister has the right not just to scale back on but to prohibit flights over some of these sensitive areas.
There are a number of float planes on the west coast that fly around out there. Could the minister, as it says in the bill, and the answer would obviously have to be yes, absolutely prohibit some of these small aircraft that may be coming into the area carrying tourists? Aside from any new air traffic that might be coming in, would the minister have the power to absolutely prohibit them? There are piles of scheduled flights every day. There are seaplanes buzzing around all over the west coast.
Obviously that makes me nervous too because we look at some of the things we have already seen. For instance, we saw this minister overlook safety concerns in national parks before when they wanted to close the Banff and Jasper airstrips. They said that was they wanted to do and they were going to shut them down. I do not think we can do that.
Motion No. 22 would put aviation associations and provincial aviation councils on the list of bodies to be consulted by the minister. It seems very reasonable to me.
Finally, regarding resource exploitation or exploring, I know some of my colleagues will deal with this with far more expertise than I will in the hours to come. However, for marine conservation areas which would have their boundaries established, knowing that there would be resource mineral extraction, the government would say “Okay, we will put them over here then”. That works for today but how in the world would it work in future years if we found that we have the technology available to extract some of those resources? Who would have thought we would have ever seen a Hibernia project 15 or 20 years ago? It seemed impossible to be able to make that extraction through a Hibernia project.
Those kinds of things are the areas that we have severe concerns about. I know the member opposite will address those and I am looking forward to her comments and concerns. We want to make sure we do this as well as possible, but when we see red lights and alarms we want to make sure we pay attention to them. I know the government is very pleased to make corrections to address our concerns.