Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased on behalf of the New Democratic Party caucus to join in the debate on third reading of Bill C-10. I will be splitting my time with the member for Dartmouth.
I am pleased to make this speech on behalf of the environment critic for the NDP caucus, the member for Windsor--St. Clair. I would like begin my speech by paying tribute to the member for Windsor--St. Clair for the dedication that he has shown to this issue and for his the research, the commitment and the involvement over many months to this important issue. It is indicative of how seriously the NDP caucus takes this issue with the amount of time, research and capital that was invested into trying to make meaningful changes to Bill C-10.
It is worth noting that we find ourselves in a rather unique situation. Because we were so committed to the tone and the spirit of Bill C-10, we voted for it at second reading. That is how eager we were to see it go to committee so that we could invite witnesses, have honest and fruitful debate and even propose amendments.
We find ourselves now in an inverse situation. We cannot support the bill because there was such intransigence at the committee stage and such an unwillingness to recognize the legitimate points that were raised by witnesses and by opposition members. Now we have a very flawed piece of legislation.
As inadequate as it was at second reading, we were compelled to vote for it just to have the opportunity to take it one step further to improve it, to hone it, to fine tune it and to make it useful to Canadians. In the best spirit of parliament, we acted in a very responsible way rather than just oppose everything that came at us from the other side.
In this case we said that the idea had merit and although it needed fine tuning and refinement, we were willing to support it at that stage just to move it along through the steps for the well-being of Canadians. We went through an exhaustive process and dedicated a great deal of time and energy. I should point out that the member for Windsor--St. Clair brought this to our attention almost weekly at the NDP caucus.
The subject of Bill C-10, the marine conservation act, came up regularly. It was given a great deal of our attention and energy. Of all the issues that we have to deal with and all the competing interests that we have as members of parliament, the bill got a disproportionate amount of our time, energy and resources. I am trying to express how frustrated we are at this juncture to have to say that all our work was perhaps for nothing. That is why members are hearing critical speeches at this stage.
As interested as people were to take part in a meaningful debate on the bill, we find ourselves as opposition members now unable to support what we thought was a very important piece of legislation.
I know the member for Windsor--St. Clair would want me to express that we view this as a lost opportunity. We view this as a missed opportunity, not just for Canadians, but for the environment. This was one of those bills and one of those times that we as a community could deal with our environment in a way that we could actually show some stewardship and leadership, and we failed. I think we failed Canadians. I think we have failed future generations. We certainly have failed the marine ecological environment.
Some of the changes that the member for Windsor--St. Clair put forward were so elementary and so basic that it defies logic. How anybody could have found fault with some of these amendments is beyond me. I was not at the committee when these amendments were put forward, but I have read the transcript from the committee. I have seen the arguments that were put forward and they were remarkable.
It is remarkable to me that the amendments put forward were rejected. I have read some of the arguments and some of the debates in Hansard . The principles were as basic and fundamental like the way we developed oil and gas reserves. We all know we explore for oil and gas under the water by seismic explosions. These blasts are detrimental to marine mammals.
An amendment was put forward that we simply could not do that. It would be irresponsible to allow that type of seismic activity in a region where marine mammals would be affected negatively.
I am just trying to envision what the argument could be against an amendment of that nature. We all know that the big draggers that stir up the bays all across our eastern and western shores are detrimental to our marine environment. Yet we chose not to comment or deal with that compelling issue in Bill C-10.
What is remarkable to me, in researching for this speech, is just how naive we are about our marine environment. We live in a country that is surrounded on three sides by ocean. We have more ocean perimeter and shore than many island nations, yet we are so painfully naive about the environment.
I built a house one time for a marine biologist who told me that they were starting to age groundfish so they would know when it was a good time to harvest groundfish and when was not. Only in recent years, at the Nanaimo biology research station, have they finally started to age groundfish, date them and say that maybe 12 years old would be the optimum time to harvest this type of groundfish. Until then, it was just by hook or by crook, by happenstance. They just took and took and hoped that the resource survived. We cannot be that irresponsible any more. It is painful to see how naive we are in this regard.
We are only just learning about our marine environment now. Maybe it is premature to put this bill in place because there is so much discovery going on.
In reading about this issue, I was interested to learn that only recently we realized there was a gully off Nova Scotia that rivalled the Grand Canyon in scope. Huge underwater environments are out there. Even though we have the capability to learn about them and deal with them, we have chosen not to. We have occupied our time, some would say capably or not, on the terrestrial side of our environment and we have ignored the underwater environment. The oil and gas interest is really in that grand canyon. This underwater canyon exists with a whole environment and culture that we can only dream about.
The research is in its infancy. The science is relatively new, yet we are passing legislation that is supposed to serve us for 100 years. We find Bill C-10 hopelessly inadequate. It does not serve what we would hope a well drafted piece of legislation coming out of the House of Commons would do for Canadians, for our future and for our marine environment.
Groups have pointed out that the inadequacies range from not only the environmental community, although it is pretty much unanimous in its criticism of the shortcomings of Bill C-10, but also the cultural communities that have pointed to real serious omissions and lack of substance in Bill C-10. Even provincial governments and other levels of government are blowing the whistle and saying that this is not ready and that it has not evolved to a degree where we should be enshrining it in legislation.
We thought that some of the changes we sought to achieve were quite reasonable. I mentioned seismic blasting and trawling. The other issue we felt should have been dealt with was the burgeoning new economic development of aquaculture and fish farming. We need to address this issue.
I have been on the west coast of Canada and toured some of the fish farms where Atlantic salmon are being raised in the Pacific Ocean. They get out of their cages. These are not an easily controlled species. They are an aggressive species. They are an invasive species. This industry is in its infancy and should have been dealt with in Bill C-10. I believe that it was by deliberate omission that it was not dealt with in Bill C-10.
We are very critical that it is more notable for what is not in the bill than what is in the bill. For that reason the New Democratic Party cannot support Bill C-10, inasmuch as we would have liked to have had a piece of legislation that we could support.