Mr. Speaker, the NAFO states continue to ignore our request for stricter enforcement. They have accepted an increase in Greenland halibut against opposition from Canada and against the scientific evidence from NAFO's own scientific council. Yet they increased the quota. The increase was supported by Japan, Russia, the Baltic states, Ukraine and Poland, among other nations.
If we look at the record, in the early nineties there were about 45 foreign fishing violations each year. At least in those days we had some observers and we had some ships in the area. After 1995 there were almost none, because we had turned our head. We caught one ship, the Estai . We had a great little photo op down at the United Nations with the then minister of fisheries. While the country thought that something was really being done, nothing was being done because we were ignoring the issue totally. We continued to ignore it until yesterday.
It is a big responsibility for the new minister. I give him credit for at least looking at the issue, but he has to do more than that. He has to come up with a concrete plan to not only stop overfishing on the high seas, but to extend Canada's control outside the 200 mile limit where we can be in a custodial role and board ships. If that takes an international tribunal and we need to have other NAFO members, so be it. We can bring them over here and put them on our coast guard boats. We have to spend money. We cannot do enforcement without spending some money.
Since the year 2000, they say the numbers of infractions are about 27 per year. There are some things out on the North Atlantic that are just the same as those 27 infractions a year. Those things are called icebergs. About 10% of an iceberg sticks out of the water. About 10% of the infractions are actually being caught. I would say it is probably less. It is probably 1% or 2% of the infractions that are being caught. It is going on daily.
I am sorry, it is not adequate to simply tell the Faroese they cannot come ashore. It is a start but it is not adequate. My suggestion to this problem is to bring the NAFO countries together and have an international team of fisheries officers boarding boats on a regular basis on the high seas to check on the holds. It would not just be Canada's initiative, it would be a NAFO initiative with Canadians, Faroese, Icelanders, Norwegians and EU people. We should bring in fisheries people from all those countries and work in a co-ordinated effort. Maybe we could do something about it.